Social media and political polarisation

社交媒体和政治两极分化

• 批准号: 2882492
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Reading
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2882492
• 关键词: Social; media; political; polarisation

Tribal Media: Towards an Enhanced Understanding of the New Norms of Youth Political Engagement through Social Media Echo ChambersIn recent years there have been growing concerns regarding the impacts of social media on democratic norms, increasing societal partisanship, and young adults' (dis)engagement in public debate (McKay & Tenove, 2020; Medina Serrano et al., 2020; Boulianne & Theocharis, 2020). As Terren & Borge (2021) note, some scholars have argued that the increasing salience of virtual spaces in political engagement would produce a new independent public sphere and expand exposure to political divergence. However, others are increasingly warning that social media is leading to polarization and the closing of social worlds through the construction of echo chambers (Baumann et al., 2020; Barberá, 2020). It is frequently claimed that social media echo chambers are distorting the views of people through manipulating the human tendency to herd together with agreeable and like-minded people (Chen, 2021). However, these assertions have yet to be fully developed in the context of young adults (Csutak, 2022; Church, 2022), providing scope for further engagement on the significance social media echo chambers have in the formation of new norms of political engagement. The present project proposal returns this call by employing the concept of 'tribalism' as a lens to better understand the perpetuation of, and norms created by, social media echo chambers. Tribalism has been theorized in many different research agendas in the fields of political science, political culture and identity politics over the past few decades, leading to the term becoming one of the most significant critical concepts in explaining how partisan political identities are formed, disseminated and lived in contemporary democracies (Iyengar et al., 2019). The most enduring interpretation of tribalism in this literature understands it as a partisan and deeply entrenched bias favouring in-groups over out-groups, where affective bonds often transcend constructive interpersonal discussion (Ignatieff, 2013; Shilaho, 2017; Whitt et al., 2021). As Chua (2018) notes, people everywhere are increasingly becoming divided into tribes and engaging with politics through their tribal biases. Indeed, studies on identity politics and the salience of these tribes are emerging as one of the core research agendas for future study in Political Science (Whitt et al., 2021). In this project, I propose the use of the novel framework of 'tribal media' to capture and discuss the tribalism inherent in the circumstances of reception of social media discourse among young adults. As such, I have identified two prevailing perspectives in the current literature on echo chambers where a tribal approach can provide value:- First, an echo chamber is often characterised narrowly as a situation or phenomenon in which online actors mostly communicate with - and are exposed to - like-minded others (Terren & Borge, 2021). In this sense, echo chambers can nurture an image of politics to such actors as an arena of group interest that consolidates 'symbiotic' in-group unity (Rudden, 2021: 378). While this notion of homophily holds partially true in the tribalism literature, tribal politics are often oriented more on the affective targeting of, and lure towards conflict with, out-group others rather than just the pursuit of homogenous group networks (North et al., 2020). As such, I propose that adopting a tribal lens here can open an enquiry into how social media echo chambers are not solely defined by selective exposure to self-affirming opinions and beliefs, but also rely on a politics of enmity where political engagement can lead to open antagonism against dissimilar others. We have seen this, for example, in the 'Alt-Right' meta-political movement in the US. People who self-identify within this term have been argued to not only seek enc

部落媒体：通过社交媒体回声室增强对青年政治参与新规范的理解近年来，人们越来越关注社交媒体对民主规范的影响，越来越多的社会党派偏见以及年轻人参与公共辩论（McKay & Tenove，2020; Medina塞拉诺等人，2020; Boulianne & Theocharis，2020）。正如Terren & Borge（2021）所指出的，一些学者认为，虚拟空间在政治参与中的日益突出将产生一个新的独立公共领域，并扩大对政治分歧的暴露。然而，其他人越来越多地警告说，社交媒体正在通过建造回声室导致两极分化和社交世界的封闭（Baumann等人，2020; Barberá，2020）。人们经常声称，社交媒体回声室通过操纵人类倾向于与和蔼可亲和志同道合的人聚集在一起来扭曲人们的观点（Chen，2021）。然而，这些主张尚未在年轻人的背景下得到充分发展（Csutak，2022; Church，2022），为进一步参与社交媒体回声室在形成新的政治参与规范方面的重要性提供了空间。本项目提案通过采用“部落主义”概念作为透镜来更好地理解社交媒体回音室的延续和创建的规范来回应这一呼吁。在过去的几十年里，部落主义在政治科学、政治文化和身份政治领域的许多不同研究议程中被理论化，导致该术语成为解释党派政治身份如何形成、传播和生活在当代民主国家中的最重要的关键概念之一（Iyengar等人，2019年）。在这篇文献中，对部落主义最持久的解释是将其理解为一种党派和根深蒂固的偏见，有利于内群体而不是外群体，其中情感纽带往往超越建设性的人际讨论（Ignatieff，2013; Shilaho，2017; Whitt等人，2021年）。正如Chua（2018）所指出的那样，世界各地的人们越来越多地分成部落，并通过部落偏见参与政治。事实上，关于身份政治和这些部落的突出性的研究正在成为政治学未来研究的核心研究议程之一（Whitt et al.，2021年）。在这个项目中，我建议使用的“部落媒体”的小说框架，捕捉和讨论的部落主义固有的情况下，接受社会媒体话语的年轻人。因此，我在当前关于回声室的文献中确定了两个流行的观点，其中部落方法可以提供价值：首先，回声室通常被狭义地描述为一种情况或现象，其中在线演员大多与志同道合的人交流并接触他们（Terren & Borge，2021）。从这个意义上说，回声室可以培养这样一种行为者的政治形象，作为一个团体利益的竞技场，巩固了“共生”的团体团结（Rudden，2021：378）。虽然这种同质性的概念在部落主义文献中部分成立，但部落政治往往更多地倾向于情感目标，并诱使与外群体其他人发生冲突，而不仅仅是追求同质群体网络（North et al.，2020年）。因此，我建议在这里采用部落透镜，可以调查社交媒体回音室如何不仅仅通过选择性地暴露于自我肯定的观点和信仰来定义，而且还依赖于敌对的政治，政治参与可能导致对不同他人的公开敌对。例如，我们已经在美国的“另类右翼”元政治运动中看到了这一点。在这个术语中自我认同的人被认为不仅是为了寻求enc，