Social media and political polarisation

近年来，人们越来越关注社交媒体对民主规范的影响、社会党派关系的增加以及年轻人（不）参与公共辩论（McKay & Tenove, 2020; Medina Serrano etal ., 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的公共领域，并扩大政治分歧的风险。然而，其他人越来越多地警告说，社交媒体正在通过构建回音室导致社会世界的两极分化和关闭（Baumann et al., 2020; barber<e:1>, 2020）。人们经常声称，社交媒体回音室通过操纵人类倾向于与随和和志同道合的人聚集在一起来扭曲人们的观点（Chen, 2021）。然而，这些断言尚未在年轻人的背景下得到充分发展（Csutak, 2022; Church, 2022），这为进一步研究社交媒体回音室在政治参与新规范形成中的重要性提供了空间。目前的项目提案通过采用“部落主义”的概念作为透镜来更好地理解社会媒体回音室的延续和规范，从而回应了这一呼吁。在过去的几十年里，部落主义已经在政治学、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在当代民主国家形成、传播和生活的最重要的关键概念之一（Iyengar等人，2019）。在这一文献中，对部落主义最持久的解释将其理解为一种党派和根深蒂固的偏见，即偏袒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 et al., 2021）。正如蔡（2018）所指出的那样，世界各地的人们越来越多地分成部落，并通过他们的部落偏见参与政治。事实上，对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）。在这个项目中，我建议使用“部落媒体”的新框架来捕捉和讨论年轻人在接受社交媒体话语的情况下固有的部落主义。因此，我在当前关于回音室的文献中确定了两种流行的观点，其中部落方法可以提供价值：首先，回音室通常被狭义地描述为一种情况或现象，在这种情况或现象中，在线演员主要与志同道合的人交流并接触（Terren & Borge, 2021）。从这个意义上说，回音室可以为这些行动者培养一种政治形象，作为巩固“共生”群体内团结的群体利益舞台（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以对外群体他人的情感定位为导向，并诱使他们与之发生冲突，而不仅仅是追求同质群体网络（North et al., 2020）。因此，我建议在这里采用部落的视角，可以开启一个调查，即社交媒体的回音室是如何不仅仅由选择性地暴露于自我肯定的观点和信仰来定义的，而且还依赖于一种敌对的政治，在这种政治参与可能导致对不同的人的公开对抗。例如，我们在美国的“另类右翼”（Alt-Right）元政治运动中就看到了这一点。有人认为，在这个术语中自我认同的人不仅寻求自我

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