tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/political-divisions-39147/articlesPolitical divisions – The Conversation2023-04-10T12:06:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025972023-04-10T12:06:29Z2023-04-10T12:06:29ZDitching a friend who is not like you can deepen social inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519916/original/file-20230406-18-dau8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C27%2C5894%2C3965&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newly released research of residents in northern California suggests that since the 2016 presidential election, some friendship groups have become more homogeneous.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/friends-enjoy-a-birthday-party-picnic-experience-provided-news-photo/1331980463?adppopup=true">Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 2016 presidential election, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/us/political-divide-splits-relationships-and-thanksgiving-too.html">news accounts</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaa101">scientific research</a> have illustrated how defriending, a term originally associated with dropping Facebook friends, echoes in our broader, offline social lives. And what may seem like a simple decision to cut off a difficult relationship may actually deepen divisions in society.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4XB29NcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">social scientists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W4qseSgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">study social networks</a>, we were keen to take a closer look at defriending beyond social media and the internet, particularly as the U.S. approaches what is likely to be another contentious presidential election. </p>
<p>Some relationships are difficult to keep going because of conflicts, disagreements, life changes or busy schedules. Those things make defriending practical and reasonable. After all, cutting social ties isn’t new. The practice has likely been around <a href="https://academic.oup.com/california-scholarship-online/book/19245">as long as relationships have existed</a>. But we wondered if relationships across racial, political or religious boundaries are more at risk of being severed during highly charged political times than other relationships.</p>
<p><a href="https://ucnets.berkeley.edu/">Newly available data</a>, gathered from northern California residents between April 2015 and May 2017, gave us a chance to look at relationships during a critical turning point in the United States. The study – comprised of 1,159 respondents – was a representative sampling of the six counties that make up the San Francisco Bay area. Researchers measured whether ties were family or nonfamily, close or not close, difficult or not difficult.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white woman reaches in to hug a Black woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Two friends celebrate finishing a half-marathon. A new study suggests more people in California ended interracial friendships since the 2016 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/susan-lear-at-left-and-her-friend-of-37-years-tina-lee-vogt-news-photo/1033450244?adppopup=true">Photo by Mindy Schauer/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Cutting interracial ties</h2>
<p>In an analysis of the data, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2023.01.006">we found that</a> people were 2.5 times more likely to cut interracial friendship ties, which are often weaker than same-race ties, after the 2016 presidential election. We also found that participants were 2.3 times more likely to cut ties with people of another religion. Importantly, a subgroup of study participants, the 21- to 30-year-olds, was almost two times more likely to drop weaker ties across the political divide due to disagreements.</p>
<p>In other words, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/659100">people were self-segregating</a>, and younger people, in particular, were distancing themselves from exposure to people who were different from them. </p>
<p>In practice, defriending can range from silently <a href="https://time.com/4779713/friendship-ghosting">ghosting</a> old friends to more overt acts, such as Dilbert creator Scott Adams’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/us/dilbert-newspapers-racism.html">racist diatribe</a> exhorting white Americans to defriend Black Americans.</p>
<p>American history is replete with examples of people being excluded from certain segments of society because of race, politics or religion. But voluntary segregation is different, and social scientists didn’t begin <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414531776">formally measuring the extent across the country</a> until the 1985 <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2095397">General Social Survey</a>, a biennial, nationally representative survey of the attitudes and behaviors of American adults.</p>
<p>Our findings from California point to how defriending plays out in a specific state.</p>
<h2>Vulnerable weak ties</h2>
<p>One clear takeaway from our study is that people were more likely to drop <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/225469">weaker ties</a> to people unlike them than they were to drop strong family ties. In other words, they weren’t willing to cut off the uncle who says offensive things under his breath at every family gathering, but they did easily cut off casual acquaintances from the gym or grocery store.</p>
<p>Despite their seeming fragility, weak ties – which can range from the relationships <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/upshot/when-chance-encounters-at-the-water-cooler-are-most-useful.html">developed during short, water cooler conversations</a> at work to connections forged from interactions with strangers during the daily commute – are critically important to our lives. </p>
<p>They create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl4476">job opportunities</a>, facilitate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4">social mobility</a> and promote <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120668119">well-being</a>.</p>
<p>Weak ties can also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/11.3.427">foster creativity and innovation</a> and lead to new opportunities across social boundaries, defined by race, politics and religion. One example of that is the <a href="https://people.com/movies/what-michelle-yeoh-learned-from-jamie-lee-curtis-exclusive/">new BFF</a> relationship between actors Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis. Though longtime acquaintances, they had never worked together until recently. The chance to collaborate <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/awards/jamie-lee-curtis-everything-everywhere-oscar-nomination-1235517306/">led to a much closer relationship and a pair of Oscar wins</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Male and female clergy of different faiths hold candles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After the 2016 presidential election, fewer people in northern California have been interested in participating in gatherings like this interfaith protest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/clergy-members-gather-at-city-hall-in-long-beach-ca-on-news-photo/1034898964?adppopup=true">Scott Varley/Digital First Media/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The price of insularity</h2>
<p>Regardless of how it happens, when people segregate into groups that look or think like them, there are significant consequences for society. In addition to losing resources such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaa026">job opportunities</a> that are controlled by someone to whom they were formerly associated, people may lose opportunities for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381611000533">building successful, inclusive political coalitions</a>. Others may not recognize challenges that people in a different group face. And because of an inability to understand someone else’s problems, people may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0221-2">less willing to help</a>.</p>
<p>These imbalances have long been difficult to reconcile, as pointed out in 1903 by pioneering sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. He famously drew attention to “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Souls-of-Black-Folk/Bois-Marable/p/book/9781594510052">the problem of the color line</a>” in American life. Radically for the time, he researched race relations and social interactions, <a href="https://papress.com/products/w-e-b-du-boiss-data-portraits-visualizing-black-america">showing how race symbolically and physically divided</a> the country. This perspective resonates in <a href="https://1619education.org/">modern-day racial disparities in American life</a>, such as <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo119245209.html">how Black Americans are expected to navigate white social spaces</a> and that Black and white workers <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/work-black-and-white">think about inequality and economic security in different ways</a>.</p>
<h2>Segregation then, now and in the future</h2>
<p>Some of the most heinous epochs in American history have occurred when a dominant group has failed to recognize a common humanity. Vestiges of slavery, for instance, lingered in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/701020">Jim Crow laws</a>. And remnants of Jim Crow are present in our <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/new-jim-crow">system of mass incarceration</a>, which legal scholar and author Michelle Alexander has described as <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/145175694">a system of racialized social control</a> that disproportionately affects Black men.</p>
<p>Even though modern American social segregation now emerges from a mix of voluntary choices to defriend and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/506415">residential segregation by race</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-019-09280-1">class</a>, the net result can be the same as enforced segregation.</p>
<p>Social boundaries can lead to population-wide inequalities because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2006.07.003">segregation leads to differential opportunities</a> for different groups. These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/6.3.217">inequalities are unjust, preventable</a> and, it turns out, very difficult to get rid of. </p>
<p>Fewer cross-group connections makes meaningful political conversation <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">more challenging</a> when neither group has a meaningful grasp of, or a willingness to engage with, another group’s perspectives. </p>
<p>Self-segregation by defriending denies us the opportunity to learn from differences and to discover commonalities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark C. Pachucki has received funding to study social networks from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a member of Heterodox Academy, a higher education professional association whose mission is to improve the quality of research and education in universities by increasing open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Paik receives funding from the National Science Foundation to study social networks in higher education. He previously received research grants to study social networks from the AccessLex Institute and the National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p>When people cut personal, interracial or interreligious ties because of political differences, the societal impact can be the same as forced segregation.Mark C. Pachucki, Associate Professor of Sociology, UMass AmherstAnthony Paik, Professor of Sociology, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1739522021-12-27T12:58:50Z2021-12-27T12:58:50ZWhat will 2022 bring in the way of misinformation on social media? 3 experts weigh in<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438882/original/file-20211222-21-vjmnmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C5349%2C3555&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A cutout display at a protest highlighted the connection between social media and the real-world effects of misinformation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cardboard-cutout-of-mark-zuckerberg-ceo-of-facebook-dressed-news-photo/1231926490">Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>At the end of 2020, it seemed hard to imagine a worse year for misinformation on social media, given the intensity of the presidential election and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. But 2021 proved up to the task, starting with the Jan. 6 insurrection and continuing with copious amounts of falsehoods and distortions about COVID-19 vaccines.</em></p>
<p><em>To get a sense of what 2022 could hold, we asked three researchers about the evolution of misinformation on social media.</em></p>
<h2>Absent regulation, misinformation will get worse</h2>
<p><strong>Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University</strong></p>
<p>While misinformation has always existed in media – think of the <a href="https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/brief-history">Great Moon Hoax of 1835</a> that claimed life was discovered on the moon – the advent of social media has significantly increased the scope, spread and reach of misinformation. Social media platforms have morphed into <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-begins-to-shift-from-being-a-free-and-open-platform-into-a-responsible-public-utility-101577">public information utilities</a> that control how most people view the world, which makes misinformation they facilitate a fundamental problem for society.</p>
<p>There are two primary challenges in addressing misinformation. The first is the dearth of regulatory mechanisms that address it. <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-congress-could-hold-facebook-accountable-for-its-actions-169799">Mandating transparency and giving users greater access to and control over their data</a> might go a long way in addressing the challenges of misinformation. But there’s also a need for independent audits, including tools that assess social media algorithms. These can establish how the social media platforms’ <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3447535.3462491">choices in curating news feeds and presenting content</a> affect how people see information. </p>
<p>The second challenge is that racial and gender biases in algorithms used by social media platforms exacerbate the misinformation problem. While social media companies have introduced mechanisms to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/19/youtube-labeling-some-health-videos-amid-misinformation-backlash.html">highlight authoritative sources of information</a>, solutions such as labeling posts as misinformation don’t solve racial and gender biases in accessing information. Highlighting relevant sources of, for example, health information may only help users with <a href="https://theconversation.com/biases-in-algorithms-hurt-those-looking-for-information-on-health-140616">greater health literacy</a> and not people with low health literacy, who tend to be disproportionately minorities. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman stands on stage in front of an audience gesturing with her hands as the screen behind her displays a mosaic of close-up images of parts of people's faces" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438880/original/file-20211222-4747-1y28g2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Carnegie Mellon University’s Justine Cassell discusses algorithmic bias at the World Economic Forum in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/39887670423">World Economic Forum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Another problem is the need to look systematically at where users are finding misinformation. TikTok, for example, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/problem-underestimating-tiktok/620354/">has largely escaped government scrutiny</a>. What’s more, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/28/misinformation-spanish-facebook-social-media/">misinformation targeting minorities</a>, particularly Spanish-language content, may be far worse than misinformation targeting majority communities. </p>
<p>I believe the lack of independent audits, lack of transparency in fact checking and the racial and gender biases underlying algorithms used by social media platforms suggest that the need for regulatory action in 2022 is urgent and immediate. </p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<h2>Growing divisions and cynicism</h2>
<p><strong>Dam Hee Kim, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Arizona</strong></p>
<p>“Fake news” is hardly a new phenomenon, yet its costs have reached another level in recent years. Misinformation concerning COVID-19 has cost countless lives all over the world. False and misleading information about elections <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2019/06/05/many-americans-say-made-up-news-is-a-critical-problem-that-needs-to-be-fixed/">can shake the foundation of democracy</a>, for instance, by making citizens <a href="https://news.arizona.edu/story/misinformation-may-breed-political-cynics">lose confidence in the political system</a>. Research I conducted with S Mo Jones-Jang and Kate Kenski on misinformation during elections, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444820943878">some published</a> and some in progress, has turned up three key findings.</p>
<p>The first is that the use of social media, originally designed to connect people, can facilitate social disconnection. Social media has become <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021">rife with misinformation</a>. This leads citizens who consume news on social media to become cynical not only toward established institutions such as politicians and the media, but also toward fellow voters. </p>
<p>Second, politicians, the media and voters have become scapegoats for the harms of “fake news.” Few of them actually produce misinformation. Most misinformation is produced by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bIbxDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&ots=K86pie1dFy&sig=PlcxRU2Gq-ZEFKFkwv1FbXfoWa8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">foreign entities</a> and <a href="http://tverezo.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/PREMS-162317-GBR-2018-Report-desinformation-A4-BAT.pdf">political fringe groups</a> who create “fake news” for financial or ideological purposes. Yet citizens who consume misinformation on social media tend to blame politicians, the media and other voters.</p>
<p>The third finding is that people who care about being properly informed are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-fall-for-fake-news-69829">not immune to misinformation</a>. People who prefer to process, structure and understand information in a coherent and meaningful way become more politically cynical after being exposed to perceived “fake news” than people who are less politically sophisticated. These critical thinkers become frustrated by having to process so much false and misleading information. This is troubling because democracy depends on the participation of engaged and thoughtful citizens. </p>
<p>Looking ahead to 2022, it’s important to address this cynicism. There has been much talk about <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-media-education-in-schools-needs-to-be-about-much-more-than-fake-news-129156">media literacy interventions</a>, primarily to help the less politically sophisticated. In addition, it’s important to find ways to explain the status of “fake news” on social media, specifically who produces “fake news,” why some entities and groups produce it, and which Americans fall for it. This could help keep people from growing more politically cynical. </p>
<p>Rather than blaming each other for the harms of “fake news” produced by foreign entities and fringe groups, people need to find a way to restore confidence in each other. Blunting the effects of misinformation will help with the larger goal of overcoming societal divisions.</p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<h2>Propaganda by another name</h2>
<p><strong>Ethan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Communication, and Information, UMass Amherst</strong></p>
<p>I expect the idea of misinformation will shift into an idea of propaganda in 2022, as suggested by sociologist and media scholar Francesca Tripodi in her <a href="https://ftripodi.com/publications/">forthcoming book</a>, “The Propagandist’s Playbook.” Most misinformation is not the result of innocent misunderstanding. It’s the product of specific campaigns to advance a political or ideological agenda. </p>
<p>Once you understand that Facebook and other platforms are the battlegrounds on which contemporary political campaigns are fought, you can let go of the idea that all you need are facts to correct people’s misapprehensions. What’s going on is a more complex mix of persuasion, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963721419862289">tribal affiliation</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199215362.013.8">signaling</a>, which plays out in venues from social media to search results.</p>
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<p>As the 2022 elections heat up, I expect platforms like Facebook will reach a breaking point on misinformation because certain lies have become political speech central to party affiliation. How do social media platforms manage when false speech is also political speech?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anjana Susarla receives funding from the Omura-Saxena Professorship in Responsible AI at Michigan State University and from the National Institute of Health</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dam Hee Kim received a research gift from South Korea's NAVER Corporation and funding from Arizona's Social & Behavioral Science Research Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ethan Zuckerman receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation and the Ford Foundation. He is affiliated with the Danielle Allen for Governor (MA) campaign.</span></em></p>Misinformation will continue to strain society in 2022 as the lines between misinformation and political speech blur, cynicism grows and the lack of regulation allows misinformation to flourish.Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State UniversityDam Hee Kim, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of ArizonaEthan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Communication, and Information, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1367962020-04-21T16:17:53Z2020-04-21T16:17:53ZDonald Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’: the politics of naming<p>For several weeks, from January through early March, US president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html">downplayed</a> the likely consequences of the coronavirus, presenting it as a minor nuisance and exaggerating the federal government’s response, even as Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services declared a <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/secretary/speeches/2020-speeches/secretary-azar-delivers-remarks-on-declaration-of-public-health-emergency-2019-novel-coronavirus.html">public-health emergency and travel restrictions to and from China</a> on January 31.</p>
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<p>It appears that the president dismissed the threat of the coronavirus because he feared the bad news might affect the market and jeopardize his chances of reelection. But as Wall Street dropped further, he finally addressed the nation from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a1Mdq8-_wo">Oval Office on March 11</a> to announce the suspension of travel “from Europe” as a way to protect Americans from the “foreign virus.”</p>
<h2>The politics of the “Chinese virus”</h2>
<p>Casting the virus “foreign” was not a simple rhetorical flourish. According to the database website <a href="https://factba.se/">Factbase</a>, the president used the expression “Chinese virus” more than <a href="https://factba.se/search">20 times</a> between March 16 and March 30. The deliberateness of the wording was made clear when a photographer captured the script of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-chinese-virus/">his speech</a> wherein Trump had crossed out the word “Corona” and replaced it with “Chinese.”</p>
<p>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/mike-pompeo-g7-coronavirus-149425">China of putting the world at risk</a> for its lack of transparency, even <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/mike-pompeo-g7-coronavirus-149425">scrapping a joint G7 statement</a> after its members refused to refer to the virus as the “Wuhan virus.”</p>
<p>Secretary Pompeo had a point. By early February, there was already strong evidence of a Chinese cover-up and repression of whistle-blowers (<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/03/wuhan-coronavirus-coverup-lies-chinese-officials-xi-jinping/">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/world/asia/coronavirus-china-xu-zhiyong.html">here</a>), later confirmed by more investigations (<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/china-coronavirus-cover-up-claims-1.5471946">here</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21124881/coronavirus-outbreak-china-li-wenliang-world-health-organization">here</a>). Yet rather than criticize China, President Trump <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/much-respect-trump-praises-chinas-understanding-of-coronavirus-pledges-to-coordinate-u-s-response-with-xi/">heaped praise</a> on the Chinese response, especially following his phone conversations with China’s leader Xi Jinping for whom the president said he had “great respect” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-north-carolina-opportunity-summit-february-7-2020">February 7</a>, <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020">Feb.10</a>) and who, he claimed, was “doing a good job” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-air-force-one-departure-february-18-2020">Feb. 18</a>), “a professional job” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-marine-one-departure-february-7-2020">Feb7</a>.), “loves his country” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-marine-one-departure-february-23-2020">Feb.23</a>) and is “extremely capable, working hard and professionally” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-geraldo-rivera-february-13-2020">Feb. 13</a>). This, even when he was asked about how he can legitimately believe the Chinese communiste regime (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-white-house-coronavirus-february-26-2020">Feb. 26</a>).</p>
<p>Donald Trump’s well-established, long-time fascination for <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s-history-praising-dictators-n604801">authoritarian leaders</a> and for <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/9861">power</a> probably played a role in his favorable view of China’s leadership. But one of his concerns was also his fear that upsetting Beijing would jeopardize the US-China trade deal, hence his insistence on the good relationship with China followed by praise of the deal (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-north-carolina-opportunity-summit-february-7-2020">Feb 7</a>, <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020">Feb.10</a>, <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-fox-10-phoenix-kari-lake-february-19-2020">Feb. 19</a>). According to an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html">investigation conducted by the New York Times</a>, Trump resisted taking the hard line defended by many hawks in his administration (including Secretary Pompeo) – at least, until he was informed that a Chinese official had spread a conspiracy theory that <a href="https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/china-covid19-origin-narrative">Covid-19 had been imported by the U.S. Army personnel</a>, which clearly upset him (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iEhLe5G4RU">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWWJRPC3Njc">here</a>).</p>
<p>This is when the president started using the expression “Chinese virus.” When faced with accusations of racism, he dismissed <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-addresses-kung-flu-remark-says-asian-americans-agree-100-with-him-using-chinese-virus">its impact on Asian Americans</a>, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s not racist at all. No, it’s not at all. It’s from China. That’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-18-2020">March 18</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a seemingly common-sense justification – after all, the virus <em>did</em> originate in China. This line of defense was eagerly taken up with by <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/right-wing-media-double-down-racist-efforts-rebrand-coronavirus">conservative media</a> and Republican officials as another battle against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness">“political correctness”</a> in America’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war">culture war</a>.</p>
<h2>Language matters</h2>
<p>President Trump may not have had racist intentions in this case, but the intent matters less than the effect. By early March, racist acts and harassment against Asians had already <a href="https://time.com/5797836/coronavirus-racism-stereotypes-attacks/">surged</a> and they continued to spike through March and into April (<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-americans-report-nearly-500-racist-acts-over-last-week-n1169821">here</a>, <a href="https://bedfordandbowery.com/2020/03/chinese-businesses-victimized-by-crime-believe-coronavirus-is-to-blame/">here</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/chinese-coronavirus-racist-attacks.html">here</a> or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/821591155/the-coronavirus-crisis-is-sparking-harassment-of-asian-americans">here</a>). Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warning that <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/homeland-security-warns-terrorists-exploit-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=69770582">white supremacists may exploit the crisis</a> against Asian-Americans. While Donald Trump did not commit these terrible acts, elected officials and scientists have a responsibility for the way they talk about the virus – words matter. That is why the WHO has had <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf">a strict guideline</a> since 2015 regarding the naming of diseases, a guideline followed by other world leaders.</p>
<p>The expressions “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus” personify the threat. Personification is metaphorical: its purpose is to help understand something unfamiliar and abstract (i.e. the virus) by using terms that are familiar and embodied (i.e. a location, a nationality or a person). But as cognitive linguists <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html">George Lakoff and Mark Johnson</a> have long shown, metaphors are not just poetic tools, they are used constantly and shape our world view. The adjective “Chinese” is particularly problematic as it associates the infection with an ethnicity. Talking about group identities with<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690128/">an explicitly medical language</a> is a recognized process of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)">Othering</a> (<a href="https://tidsskrift.dk/qual/article/view/5510">here</a> and <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aB6pAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT306&dq=othering+identity+">here</a>), historically used in <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-asian-racism-during-coronavirus-how-the-language-of-disease-produces-hate-and-violence-134496">anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, including toward Chinese immigrants in North America</a>. This type of language stokes anxiety, resentment, fear and disgust toward people associated with that group.</p>
<h2>Diseases, bodies and disgust</h2>
<p>Metaphors also shape our world view by both highlighting and hiding certain aspects of a concept (<a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html">Lakoff and Johnson</a>). For instance, the expression “foreign virus” implies that the nation is a body facing an external threat identified as foreign. The <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400562.The_Body_in_the_Mind">nation-as-a-body</a> is <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9963242/The_metaphor_of_the_body_politic_across_languages_and_cultures">a common metaphor in the English language</a> (think of expressions such as “head of state,” “head of government,” “long arm of the law”, etc.), but it also a metaphor used in anti-immigrant rhetoric as professor O'Brien has shown in his book, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315141633"><em>Contagion and the National Body</em></a>. Donald Trump himself has associated immigrants with “disease coming into our country,” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-iowa-gop-fundraiser-dinner-june-11-2019">June 11, 2019</a>), “communicable disease” and “tremendous medical problem coming into a country” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-bill-signing-genocide-december-11-2018">Dec. 11, 2018</a>), including during the 2015 primary campaign.</p>
<p>Such language implies that borders will protect an uncontaminated, homogeneous and somewhat “pure” population from the filthy, malignant foreigner. It hides the fact that travel restrictions alone <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-snowballing-china-travel-claim/">cannot contain an outbreak</a>, especially one that’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21176669/travel-ban-trump-coronavirus-china-italy-europe">already there</a>. They may delay the spread providing that governments prepare a public health response, something the Trump administration did not do for a whole month, hence the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/13/trump-coronavirus-meltdown-media-authority">president’s anger when confronted by the press on this issue</a>.</p>
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<p>Similarly, while the red states were quick to support closing foreign borders, they were <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/06/red-and-blue-states-are-divided-over-social-distancing">reluctant to impose social distancing</a>within, and while these measures were in place in the Blue states, in accordance with the White House’s own <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6878850-Testing-Blueprint.html">guidelines</a>, the president eventually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-governors.html">encouraged protests against democrat governors</a> of those states.</p>
<p>Associating the virus with foreigners also plays to his supporters’ cognitive bias <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/explaining-the-trump-vote-the-effect-of-racist-resentment-and-antiimmigrant-sentiments/537A8ABA46783791BFF4E2E36B90C0BE/core-reader">against outsiders and immigrants</a> and their fear of contagion – <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trumping-fears-of-the-oth_b_7925932">racial, social, cultural or otherwise</a>. Academic studies (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550611429024">here</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474704918764170">here</a>) have shown a correlation between <a href="https://bigthink.com/stephen-johnson/how-sensitive-we-are-to-disgust-determines-our-views-on-immigration-study-says">anti-immigration views</a>, political conservatism and disgust sensitivity. </p>
<p>Communication scholar <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319342996_The_disgust_of_Donald_Trump">Michael Richardson has convincingly argued</a> that disgust has been one of the primary affective drivers of Trump’s success. The psychology of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgust">disgust</a> is important here: its primary function is precisely to <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/disgust-evolved-to-protect-us-from-disease-is-it-working">help us avoid diseases</a>. It is concerned with what comes OUT OF the body, but also with what goes IN. It is also learned in early childhood. Problems arise when the psychology of disgust is directed at <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/disgust-evolved-to-protect-us-from-disease-is-it-working">innocent groups or behaviors</a> and passed off as “natural.” Blaming a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/sen-cornyn-china-blame-coronavirus-because-people-eat-bats-n1163431">clichéd version</a> of the Asian diet for the virus betrays a willful ignorance. Trump, himself, is a noted germaphobe, one who supported the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/trump-coronavirus-antivaxxer-vaccine">anti-vaccine movement</a> because he didn’t like the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/health/trump-vaccines.html">“idea of injecting bad things into your body”</a>.</p>
<h2>The war metaphor</h2>
<p>President Trump abruptly <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-questioned-by-fox-on-apparent-move-away-from-chinese-virus-rhetoric/">stopped using the expression</a> “Chinese virus” after China promised to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-china.html">send medical supplies</a>, and turned his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE7Q1c8XoSE">attack on the WHO instead</a>, attacking them out for praising China. </p>
<p>Not quite ready to apologize, the president issued a series of statements via <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1242202290393677829">Twitter</a> and in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJmlnt-QZgY">briefings</a> asking for the protection of “our Asian community”.</p>
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<p>He seems to have finally settled on the use of “the invisible enemy,” which he has used <a href="https://factba.se/search">more than 50 times from March through mid-April</a>. This is part of his use of the war metaphor. Of course a pandemic is not war, and much has been much written about (<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/03/why-waging-war-coronavirus-dangerous-metaphor">here</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/donald-trump-boris-johnson-coronavirus">here</a>, or <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/war-metaphor-coronavirus/609049/">here</a>), including on The Conversation (<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-if-we-are-in-a-war-against-covid-19-then-we-need-to-know-where-the-enemy-is-135274">here</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-coronavirus-pandemic-a-war-135486">here</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/war-metaphors-used-for-covid-19-are-compelling-but-also-dangerous-135406">here</a>). </p>
<p>But what distinguishes President Trump from other leaders who have used the same war analogy to mobilize their countries is that he has largely dismissed the painful aspect of the “war” by focusing directly on the “great victory” which, according to him, “will happen much earlier than expected” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-22-2020">March 22</a>) and “will take place quickly” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-18-2020">March 18</a>).</p>
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<p>Meanwhile he has continued to pit people against each other, ignoring that a pandemic requires global cooperation and medical solutions, not national and military ones, or even local ones where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/24/scramble-medical-equipment-descends-into-chaos-us-states-hospitals-compete-rare-supplies/">states compete with each other</a> for medical supplies in an “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/new-york-andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-ventilators">eBay” style bidding war encouraged by the Federal government</a>. By presenting himself as a “wartime president” (<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-march-22-2020">March 22</a>) against a willful enemy who is “brilliant” or “very smart” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J-ixpBt8g8">April 10</a>), Donald Trump has externalized responsibilities, blamed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/19/trump-us-coronavirus-briefing-media">the media</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/14/trump-who-coronavirus-response/">international institutions</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE7Q1c8XoSE">political correctness</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-hits-governors-says-andrew-cuomo-working-hard/5108421002/">the governors</a>.</p>
<p>So while the wording has changed, the intent has not. Each new metaphor allows him to change the narrative, deflect blame and cast himself as the Savior-in-Chief who has saved <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-coronavirus-briefing-april-13-2020">“tens of thousands of lives”</a> from the “foreign enemy.” Reality TV needs heroes. Trump desperately wants to be that hero. This script, though, doesn’t seem to fit that storyline despite <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUXsgVA8lN8">his best efforts</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>An analysis of the expressions used by Donald Trump to designate Covid-19 sheds light on his political calculations and on the evolution of his relationship with China in recent weeks.Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris UniversitéDana Lindaman, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Minnesota DuluthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1229252019-09-20T12:34:49Z2019-09-20T12:34:49ZPartisan divide creates different Americas, separate lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292336/original/file-20190912-190035-9u6p77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C6%2C4001%2C2671&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even in the physical world, it's hard to cross partisan lines.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/top-view-sneakers-above-male-female-197932532">igorstevanovic/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When people try to explain why the United States is so <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/">politically polarized</a> now, they <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/12/as-david-lettermans-first-netflix-guest-barack-obama-warns-against-the-bubble-of-social-media/">frequently refer</a> to the concept of “echo chambers.” </p>
<p>That’s the idea that people on social media interact only with like-minded people, reinforcing each other’s beliefs. When people don’t encounter competing ideas, the argument goes, they become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9760.00148">less willing to cooperate with political opponents</a>.</p>
<p>The problem goes beyond the online world. In my new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/overdoing-democracy-9780190924195?cc=us&lang=en&">Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in its Place</a>,” I explain that in the United States, liberals and conservatives do not only differ politically. </p>
<p>They also live separate lives in the physical world.</p>
<p>This phenomenon was first documented in journalist Bill Bishop’s 2004 book “<a href="http://www.thebigsort.com/home">The Big Sort</a>.” Scholars have found it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1191991">has persisted into more recent years</a> as well. </p>
<p>It turns out that people’s physical communities, surroundings and lifestyles can be their own form of an echo chamber. This separation is so complete that it includes not only the communities and neighborhoods where people live, but also where people shop and what brands they buy, what sort of work they do, where they worship, what sorts of vacations they take and even how they decorate their homes.</p>
<h2>How personal do political divisions get?</h2>
<p>It’s common knowledge that liberals and conservatives live in different places. After all, the idea of <a href="https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2018/03/13/red-states-blue-states-two-economies-one-nation/">“red states” and “blue states”</a> is based in reality. But preferences are much more local than that. </p>
<p>Liberals and conservatives in the U.S. systematically favor different kinds of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1532673X08318589">physical environments</a>. Even when they live in regions that might overall appear more politically mixed, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/13/big-houses-art-museums-and-in-laws-how-the-most-ideologically-polarized-americans-live-different-lives/">liberals prefer walkable and ethnically diverse communities</a>, while conservatives gravitate toward <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-democrats-cities/">areas with larger houses and more private land</a>. </p>
<p>Different preferences govern the most personal surroundings: One study shows that liberals and conservatives <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20447169?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">decorate their homes differently</a>. Clocks and flags for conservatives, art and maps for liberals. According to the same research, they also fashion different workspaces. Conservatives favor neater and more orderly spaces, while liberals tend to work in offices that are less organized and more colorful.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292648/original/file-20190916-19083-iu6krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Which side are you on?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-nyusafebruary-6-2019-starbucks-1306178518">rblfmr/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What shopping reveals</h2>
<p>When it comes to commerce, the contrasting stereotypes are familiar: Walmart or Target? Starbucks or Dunkin? Hybrid or pickup? Football or fútbol? Whole Foods or Kroger? Beyoncé or Toby Keith? A broad body of research suggests that these references to consumer habits are effective representatives of political views. </p>
<p>Political opponents tend to <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2018/01/25/walmart-vs-target-a-political-divide-among-shoppers/">shop at different stores</a>, with conservatives at Walmart and liberals at Target. Shoppers favor <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/02/brands-preferred-democrats-republicans-221912">different brands</a> of home coffeemaker, pet food and jeans depending on their political preferences.</p>
<p><iframe id="ryN9o" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ryN9o/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Liberals and conservatives even view the very act of shopping differently. One experiment found that conservatives <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy004">seek to purchase items that signal their status</a> within a social hierarchy, such as luxury and success, while liberals seek out purchases that will establish their individuality and distinctness.</p>
<h2>Work and home are different, too</h2>
<p>Similar dynamics appear in other spheres of Americans’ daily lives. Over the past two decades, the American workplace, once heralded as a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00376.x">site of cross-partisan cooperation</a>, has become more politically homogeneous. </p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/8/2/277/2502548">Certain professions</a> now tend to skew decidedly left or right. Lawyers, journalists and professors tend to skew liberal, whereas conservatives are prevalent in finance and medicine.</p>
<p>Liberals and conservatives live in <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/698929?mobileUi=0&">different kinds of family groups</a>. Liberals get <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1995822">married later in life and have fewer children</a>. Data even show that people tend to be more <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/political-homophily-social-relationships-evidence-online-dating">romantically interested in those who share their political affliation</a>, rather than people who don’t. In fact, Americans are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfs038">more disapproving of cross-partisan relationships</a> than they are of interracial ones.</p>
<p>Liberals and conservatives worship in <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/political-ideology/">different congregations</a>; conservatives tend toward evangelical Christianity, while liberals are more diverse in their faith. And they take <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/liberals-conservatives-even-vacation-differently-n1027161">different kinds of vacations</a>. Liberals more often vacation abroad and spend more time at beaches than conservatives, who tend to travel by car to spots where they can fish and play golf. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292673/original/file-20190916-19083-1ivmgau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is this the ultimate bipartisan vacation spot?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/golf-ball-on-tee-sand-678852598">Kirill Skvarnikov/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reconnecting a deeply divided nation</h2>
<p>In ways that are not always conscious, more and more personal choices and characteristics are regarded by citizens as <a href="https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2015/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf">expressing partisan allegiances</a>. Carrying a tote bag, wearing yoga pants, shopping at Walmart, driving a pickup truck are all ways of signaling one’s political affiliation. This in turn reinforces the fact that liberals and conservatives inhabit different social worlds, each becoming at once <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12487">increasingly homogeneous within their groups and more intensely hostile toward the other</a>. </p>
<p>Finding common ground in such a divided country will require more than one commonly offered solution, that people <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/independentminds/long-reads/matthew-syed-book-review-rebel-ideas-social-networks-a9097246.html">diversify their news sources</a>. With political disputes magnified and amplified by disparate, even opposing, ways of life, it’s harder to see political rivals as fellow citizens. </p>
<p>Rather, they appear to be <a href="https://www.people-press.org/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/">obstacles and threats</a>. Encounters with these opposing forces breed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115">fear and hostility</a>, not comfort and familiarity.</p>
<p>With citizens sorted into physical and digital partisan enclaves, the Democratic and Republican parties find it rewarding to accentuate their differences from each other. Unwillingness to compromise or cooperate with the other side becomes a sign of integrity, leaving the business of politics undone.</p>
<p>To keep American democracy healthy, people all across the country will have to do more than engage with different ideas online. They’ll need to find shared interests and goals despite their persistent, and often deep, differences. The solution, it seems to me, is to find things to do together that are in no way political. But in a world where nearly everything – even carrying tote bag or driving a pickup – is an expression of one’s politics, that may be easier said than done.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert B. Talisse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the United States, liberals and conservatives do not only differ politically. They also live separate lives in the physical world.Robert B. Talisse, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1010732018-09-20T10:36:48Z2018-09-20T10:36:48ZHere’s how Trump-era politics are affecting worker morale – and what managers can do about it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236973/original/file-20180918-158246-13qb0yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Politics are creating divides in the office.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/african-american-businessman-disagreeing-arguing-debating-1017665245?src=Rx3NC9SBNvgdW3ki-4YUeg-1-2">fizkes/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pundits are projecting this year’s midterm elections to be <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-steady-approval-polls-point-to-a-nasty-and-divisive-midterm-election-ahead">nasty</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-midterm-elections-approach-a-growing-concern-that-the-nation-is-not-protected-from-russian-interference/2018/08/01/7f0f4324-95b2-11e8-810c-5fa705927d54_story.html">polarizing</a> and “<a href="http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/politics/elections/midterm-elections-2018-donald-trump-congress-democrats-republicans__trashed-20180912.html">epic</a>.”</p>
<p>They’re also expected to <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/americans-lose-sleep-politics">stress a lot of Americans out</a> in every part of their lives. And that includes at the <a href="https://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-consequences-politics-workplace-20176.html">office</a>. </p>
<p>I recently conducted a study on a broad range of workplace issues, including how the stress of our increasingly divisive politics is affecting worker health, productivity and relationships with colleagues. I also wondered: Is there anything company managers can do about it? </p>
<h2>Growing divisiveness</h2>
<p>Political divisiveness in America is hardly new. </p>
<p>Historians <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-origins-of-todays-bitter-partisanship-the-founding-fathers/244839/">have traced its history</a> all the way back to the founding founders. But politics <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">seem to be dividing Americans</a> more and more. </p>
<p>In a recent article in <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-identity-not-issues-explains-the-partisan-divide/">Scientific American</a>, psychologists Cameron Brick and Sander van der Linden explained that individuals of different political ideologies “not only disagree on policy issues, they are also <a href="https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2012/iyengar-poq-affect-not-ideology.pdf">increasingly unwilling</a> to live near each other, be friends, or get married to members of the other group.”</p>
<p>Consequences include <a href="https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/07/poll-2016-election-breakups/21708912/">marital stress</a>, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/trump-presidency-destroying-marriages-country-article-1.3386982">divorce</a>, <a href="https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/07/poll-2016-election-breakups/21708912/">family separations</a> and even <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nfl-not-dying-may-plateauing-161457955.html">sharp divides</a> over national pastimes like football. </p>
<p>There is a bright side – if you’re a therapist and benefiting from an uptick in business perhaps as the result of a malady described as “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-anxiety-disorder-mental-health-political-divide-us-1.4762487">Trump Anxiety Disorder</a>.”</p>
<h2>Politics at work</h2>
<p>I wanted to see just how bad it’s getting in the workplace.</p>
<p>My field study, conducted this past summer and part of a larger project I intend to have peer-reviewed and published on the anxiety-inducing properties of political conflict, conjoins my interests in the areas of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3492-8">incivility</a>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1059601117696676">entitlement</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2015.1066295">worker self-serving behavior</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704717004575268701579722946">bullying</a>.</p>
<p>I asked 550 full-time workers whose email addresses I obtained through my undergraduate students to react to hundreds of statements about a wide variety of work issues, from abusive bosses and workplace relationships to incivility and health. I also asked about the pervasiveness and impact of unwelcome partisan exchanges. </p>
<p>Participants were asked to indicate how much they agreed with each statement, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Most of the workers were based in the eastern or southeastern United States, but some were scattered throughout the country. Key characteristics of the data such as age, gender and ethnicities are broadly in line with national statistics.</p>
<p>Using students to solicit participants in a survey <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12043">has become an increasingly common</a> and important research tool. As such, although the data aren’t entirely representative of the U.S., I believe they still offer meaningful insights. </p>
<p>Twenty-seven percent of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that work had become more tense as a result of political discussions, while about a third said such talk about the “ups and downs” of politicians is a “common distraction.” </p>
<p>One in 4 indicated they actively avoid certain people at work who try to convince them that their views are right, while 1 in 5 said they had actually lost friendships as a result. </p>
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<p>And all this has serious consequences for worker health and productivity. </p>
<p>Over a quarter said political divisions have increased their stress levels, making it harder to get things done. Almost a third of this group said they called in sick on days when they didn’t feel like working, compared with 17 percent among those who didn’t report feeling stressed about politics. A quarter also reported putting in less effort than expected, versus 12 percent. And those who reported being more stressed were 50 percent more likely to distrust colleagues. </p>
<p>These percentages represent fairly high increases from similar surveys taken before the 2016 election. For example, back in September 2016, 17 percent of those <a href="http://www.apaexcellence.org/assets/general/2017-politics-workplace-survey-results.pdf">surveyed</a> by the American Psychological Association said they felt tense or stressed out as a result of political discussions at work. </p>
<p>The association did a follow-up survey in May 2017 already revealing increased stress levels, a drop in worker productivity and other consequences following the election of Donald Trump. My findings, however, suggest things have gotten even worse. That 2017 survey, for example, reported 15 percent of respondents saying they had difficulty getting work done. My data put it at 26 percent. </p>
<h2>What managers can do</h2>
<p>After conducting this study, I wondered what company managers are doing about politics-related stress in the workplace. So I reached out to 20 business leaders from a variety of industries whom I have become acquainted with over the years in my role as a professor. </p>
<p>I discovered a few common themes. </p>
<p>One was that the problem often began with a higher-level employee sharing his or her political views with others, whether welcome or not, making underlings feel they could engage in similar behavior in the office. A manager of a publishing company, for example, noted that he had to fire one of his unit leaders because he could not put his political beliefs away during his shift despite a series of reprimands.</p>
<p>Another was that <a href="https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/articles/2016-03-14/can-your-employer-forbid-you-from-talking-politics-at-work">banning all political discussions</a> was also bad policy, since it opened the door to <a href="https://www.laboremploymentreport.com/2016/02/26/politics-in-the-workplace/">lawsuits</a> over free speech issues. </p>
<p>What the “right” policy about what boundaries to set for political chatter at work remains an open question. The key point is that the business leaders I spoke with tended to agree that managers need to get their heads out of the sand and address the problem head on. They seemed to think a lot of managers appeared to be ignoring the problem and hoping it would go away.</p>
<p>Also, a number of them added that they are now investing in programs that help manage conflicts and disagreements at work – among employees and with customers. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, there’s little companies can do about how politically divided the nation becomes. But keeping it from stressing out employees at work and causing productivity and other problems is primarily about effective leadership and being proactive, and showing employees a level of civility that is often absent outside of the workplace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101073/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wayne Hochwarter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The midterm elections have put America’s political divide front and center, increasingly invading the work space and stressing out employees.Wayne Hochwarter, Professor of Organization Behavior, Florida State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1006322018-07-31T10:40:00Z2018-07-31T10:40:00ZMore Republicans in the news? That’s not media bias<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229892/original/file-20180730-106502-1evh1sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's difficult to measure media bias.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-united-kingdom-1-april-2015-300273554">Lawrey/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/20/ny-times-wash-post-quote-more-twice-many-republicans-democrats-political-coverage/220738">A July 20 report</a>, analyzing news content from The New York Times and The Washington Post, found that Republican politicians get roughly 2.5 times as many mentions as Democrats. </p>
<p>The report, produced by a progressive nonprofit Media Matters, <a href="https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1020451596692590594">was shared widely</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1020296460972195840">on social media</a>. Many readers interpreted its findings as evidence of media bias. </p>
<p>But does the report really tell us that much? I am a researcher studying political communication and I have examined the last 40 years of U.S. political coverage in great detail. It’s unsurprising that, in a time when Republicans dominate politically, they also dominate in political news coverage.</p>
<h2>Perceived bias</h2>
<p>Media bias is an animating topic in American politics. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/225755/americans-news-bias-name-neutral-source.aspx">In a 2017 poll</a>, 45 percent of Americans surveyed said that they saw a great deal of bias in the news media. </p>
<p>A common <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1022116027478495232">rallying cry</a> among conservatives is that the media have a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KCQjBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=liberal+media+goldberg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjksPmy1b3cAhWhUt8KHf6uCHcQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=liberal%20media%20goldberg&f=false">liberal bias</a>. Surveys repeatedly show the overwhelming proportion of reporters <a href="http://archive.news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-american-journalist-key-findings.pdf">identify as Democrats</a>, which further reinforces the perception among conservative Americans that reporters are biased against them. </p>
<p>At the same time, many liberals <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-hanley/bernie-sanders-is-exactly_b_9559188.html">view the media as biased</a> towards conservatives, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=18IWX4hxHNUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=manufacturing+consent&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwianYuqh8fcAhUvmeAKHYzBAwYQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=manufacturing%20consent&f=false">believing that</a> the corporate media is subordinate to the corporate elites. This is seen as especially true in the media environment that’s <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199987238.001.0001">heavily consolidated</a> among a handful of powerful corporate actors.</p>
<p>In short, many on both ends of the political spectrum view the media as biased against their political side. In fact, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/225755/americans-news-bias-name-neutral-source.aspx">the majority of Americans</a> cannot name a single news outlet that they believe reports the news objectively. </p>
<h2>Studying the media</h2>
<p>Despite these widespread beliefs, academics are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02866.x">unable to agree</a> on whether the media are, in fact, biased.</p>
<p>Studies on media bias take different approaches. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/009365099026002003">Some studies</a> simply compare differences in coverage tone or volume across different presidential administrations. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00000009">Another approach</a> looks for bias in newspaper endorsements of politicians. More sophisticated attempts try to score an outlet’s slant by looking at the number of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/003355305775097542">citations of left-wing and right-wing think tanks</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA7195">loaded political phrases associated with the Democratic or Republican Party</a>. Taken together, however, these studies produced mixed results. </p>
<p>One of the reasons that it’s so difficult to measure bias is that researchers struggle to <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/101330162/tilt-the-search-for-media-bias">establish a baseline</a> of what the unbiased coverage should look like. Take a recent example, when the <a href="https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1023300057121153034">GOP complained on Twitter</a> that 92 percent of immigration news coverage related to President Donald Trump’s policies is negative. </p>
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<p>That number, on its own, doesn’t indicate bias, since we don’t know what the media coverage would look like in the same circumstances, but with a Democrat in the White House. If a Democratic president imposed similar immigration policies and the resulting coverage was more positive, that would indicate political bias. </p>
<p>Since such examples are so difficult to come by, media bias scholars must continue to search for best ways to measure that concept. </p>
<h2>Why the recent report doesn’t show bias</h2>
<p>So, does the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/20/ny-times-wash-post-quote-more-twice-many-republicans-democrats-political-coverage/220738">Media Matters report</a> – which demonstrates that the mainstream newspapers cited 2.5 times as many Republicans than Democrats in May and June of this year – really show media bias? </p>
<p>There are several reasons why that proposition might not be true. Republicans currently dominate all levels of government. In addition to the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/Elections/Legis_Control_071018_26973.pdf">the GOP controls</a> 33 state governorships and 31 state legislatures. As a consequence, they are more likely to appear in the news simply by being in more positions of power. </p>
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<p>Furthermore, journalists gather news according to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Deciding_What_s_News.html?id=bWpFtVJlAD0C">ease of access</a> and <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3534630.html">force of habit</a>, meaning that they tend to rely on easily accessible politicians for their stories. The end result is that the news coverage <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1990.tb02265.x">tends to reflect</a> the political balance of power. So it’s very likely that the media make references to more Democrats while Democrats are in power, and more Republicans when Republicans are in power. </p>
<p>In my doctoral dissertation, I examined over 170,000 news stories from The New York Times and Washington Post, like the original report, but over a much longer period of time. I looked at coverage of <a href="https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0368990">10 different issues</a>, ranging from immigration reform to climate change, of all politicians from both parties. For the sake of simplicity, I broke it down by presidency, since the actual balance of power is often more complicated to determine. </p>
<p>The results, however, showed clearly that Democrats appear in more articles during the years when their party controlled the White House, while Republicans appear in more articles when they are in power. </p>
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<p>This is not to say that the media are not biased or that there’s nothing wrong with the current state of political news coverage. But there’s nothing unique about the party that dominates elected offices across the country also dominating news coverage. This has been the case for decades and is not evidence of partisan bias in the media.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominik Stecula received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada during his doctoral studies, from which the data used in this article has been gathered. </span></em></p>Nearly half of Americans say they see a great deal of bias in the news media. But the research on this subject is unresolved.Dominik Stecuła, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923912018-04-06T10:44:53Z2018-04-06T10:44:53ZWhy is it so stressful to talk politics with the other side?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213438/original/file-20180405-189801-1ps1mhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The prospect alone can make you want to avoid the person altogether.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tomb-ribaudo-family-monumental-cemetery-genoa-560588167?src=nDjgg6Wi6b5hWhCWG-1JeQ-1-54">faber1893/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People disagree all the time, but not all disagreements lead to the same levels of stress. </p>
<p>Even though people can be passionate about their favorite sport teams, they can argue about which basketball team is the best without destroying friendships. In the workplace, co-workers can often dispute strategies and approaches without risking a long-term fallout.</p>
<p>Political conversations, on the other hand, seem to have become especially challenging in recent years. Stories of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-bridge-the-political-divide-at-the-holiday-dinner-table-69113">tense Thanksgiving dinners</a> and of <a href="https://blogsitestudio.com/unfriending-trump-voting-facebook-friends/">Facebook friends being unfriended</a> have become commonplace.</p>
<p>Why does this happen?</p>
<p>Our research – and related research in political psychology – suggest two broad answers. </p>
<p>First, our work shows that divisive topics – issues that are polarizing, or on which there’s no general societywide consensus – can evoke feelings of anxiety and threat. That is, simply considering these topics appears to put people on guard. </p>
<p>Second, <a href="http://lskitka.people.uic.edu/styled-3/index.html">research on moral conviction</a> by psychologist Linda Skitka and her colleagues suggests that attitudes linked to moral values can contribute to social distancing. In other words, if someone considers their position on an issue to be a question of right versus wrong or good versus evil, they’re less likely to want to interact with a person who disagrees on that issue. </p>
<h2>An automatic trigger of anxiety</h2>
<p>In our research, we define divisive issues as ones that don’t have a clear consensus. </p>
<p>For example, just about everyone supports food safety; but if you bring up issues like abortion or capital punishment, you’ll see people fall into opposing camps. </p>
<p>People also like to have a general idea of where someone falls on an issue before they start debating it. If you’re talking with a stranger, you don’t know how to anticipate their position on a divisive topic. This creates an uncertainty that can be uncomfortable.</p>
<p>With this framework in mind, behavioral scientist Joseph Simons and I designed <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093650216644025">a series of studies</a> to explore how this plays out. </p>
<p>In our first study, we simply asked individuals to look at a list of 60 social issues (ranging from safe tap water to slavery) and estimated what percentage of people are in favor of that issue. Participants also rated how much they would feel anxious, threatened, interested or relaxed when discussing that issue. </p>
<p>As expected, people thought they would feel more anxious and threatened when discussing a topic that was generally considered more divisive. (Under some circumstances – such as when people didn’t hold a strong attitude on the issue themselves – they did feel somewhat more interested in discussing these topics.)</p>
<p>In a second study, we investigated the experience of threat at an unconscious level. That is, do divisive topics automatically trigger anxiety? </p>
<p>We conducted an experiment that was based on <a href="https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/07/07/misattribution-of-arousal/">the psychological finding</a> that people don’t always recognize the source of their emotional responses. Feelings that are evoked by one event or object can “carry over” to an unrelated judgment. In this study, we presented participants with a popular topic (for example, supporting veterans), an unpopular topic (high unemployment) or a divisive topic (stem cell research). They then saw a neutral computer-generated picture of a face and had to quickly rate how threatening the face appeared. </p>
<p>Participants were more likely to see a neutral face as threatening if they were thinking about a divisive topic. (Unpopular topics showed a similar effect.)</p>
<p>A third study replicated these effects using fictitious polling data about direct-to-consumer drug advertising. We told some participants that there was a high public consensus about support for this sort of advertising, and we told others that there was wide disagreement. Specifically, we told them that either 20 percent, 50 percent or 80 percent of the public was in favor of these ads.</p>
<p>Participants then imagined discussing the issue and reported how they would feel. As in previous studies, those who were told there was more disagreement tended to feel more threatened or anxious about the prospect of discussing the issue.</p>
<h2>‘Right and wrong’ adds a layer of complication</h2>
<p>An additional social obstacle goes beyond mere disagreement. Consider two individuals who oppose the death penalty.</p>
<p>One person may think that the death penalty is morally wrong, whereas the other person may believe that the death penalty is ineffective at deterring crime. Although both individuals may strongly support their position, the first person holds this attitude with moral conviction.</p>
<p><a href="http://lskitka.people.uic.edu/MCs.pdf">Research by Skitka and her colleagues</a> highlights the social consequences of these “moral mandates.” When it’s a matter of right or wrong, people become less tolerant of others who hold the opposite view. Specifically, individuals with stronger moral convictions tended to not want to associate with those who disagreed with them on certain issues. This social distancing was reflected both in survey responses – “would be happy to be friends with this person” – and even physical distance, like placing a chair farther away from a person with an opposing view. </p>
<p>Of course, no one is ever going to agree on every issue. But it’s important for people to learn about where others are coming from in order to reach a compromise. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, compromise or consensus is more difficult to come by if people start out the conversation feeling threatened. And if individuals feel that someone who holds an opposite view is simply a bad person, the conversation may never happen at all. </p>
<p>In the end, it doesn’t matter if you’re talking to a stranger or friends; the <a href="http://lskitka.people.uic.edu//FrimerSkitkaMotyl2017.pdf">possibility of exclusion or avoidance</a> increases when a divisive topic is raised. </p>
<p>There’s no easy solution. Sometimes raising these topics may reveal irreconcilable differences. But other times, a willingness to approach <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html">difficult topics calmly</a> – while truly listening to the other side – may help people find common ground or promote change. </p>
<p>It might also be helpful to take a step back. A disagreement on a single issue – even a morally charged one – isn’t necessarily grounds for discontinuing a friendship. On the other hand, focusing on other shared bonds and morals can salvage or strengthen the relationship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Green has received funding from the Spencer Foundation. </span></em></p>We can disagree with co-workers in meetings. We can argue about sports with friends. A new study explores why politics seems to be an entirely different beast.Melanie Green, Associate Professor of Communication, University at BuffaloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/919612018-02-26T11:34:21Z2018-02-26T11:34:21ZUnderstanding the US political divide, one word cloud at a time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207550/original/file-20180222-152351-10pceem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In a divided United States, how can we describe who is on each side?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>America’s political divide goes by many names – rural-urban, blue-red, metro-non-metro and left-right. We are told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/rural-america/?utm_term=.b0c83b4cc9df">it is bad</a> and that it is only <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/trump-partisan-divide-republicans-democrats/541917/">getting worse</a>, thanks to phenomena like <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-may-owe-his-2016-victory-to-fake-news-new-study-suggests-91538">fake news</a>, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/04/urban-rural-recovery-great-recession/">economic uncertainty</a> and the <a href="http://w3001.apl.wisc.edu/pdfs/b03_16.pdf">migration of young people</a> away from their rural homes. </p>
<p>And it’s fairly common for one side of the divide to speak for the other, without knowledge of who the other really is or what they stand for. An example: The term that’s been used to describe my state’s booming economy – “Colorado’s <a href="http://www.cpr.org/news/story/cu-leeds-biz-outlook-says-colorado-s-hot-streak-will-roll-into-2018">hot streak</a>” – is in some ways <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/24/colorado-politics-divide-rural-urban-communities-donald-trump/">the opposite</a> of what many rural Coloradans are experiencing. But their story rarely makes the news.</p>
<p>Telling someone about metro versus non-metro <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rural-poverty-well-being/poverty-overview.aspx">poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/ss/ss6618a1.htm?s_cid=ss6618a1_w">suicide</a> or <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/85740/eib-182.pdf">adult mortality</a> rates scrapes the surface of how things are felt by those living these statistics. Descriptions never seem to do justice to how these divides are experienced, which speaks to the wisdom of the writing rule, “Show, don’t tell.” </p>
<p>What is that divide, really? And how can we show it?</p>
<h2><strong>How to communicate the divide: word clouds</strong></h2>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/mcarolan/">professor of sociology</a> and have been studying rural and agriculture-related issues, both in the U.S. and abroad, since the late 1990s. Prior to that, I was busying growing up in rural Iowa, in the far northeast corner of the state. </p>
<p>A few years ago I interviewed farmers and agriculture professionals in North Dakota and members of a very different agricultural community: an urban farm cooperative. In the case of this particular urban farm cooperative, land was placed in a trust to support urban agriculture and leased to members on a sliding scale. I promised not to divulge the cooperative’s location in order to elicit participation within this group. </p>
<p>I wanted to know how these two communities talked and thought about issues like sustainability and food security. I was also interested in how these group members, whose lives were focused on agriculture in very different ways, illustrated some of the divides in our country.</p>
<p>I had a hunch these groups differed in more ways than their zip codes and socio-economic backgrounds. The North Dakota group, for instance, was all white and predominately male, whereas the urban population was considerably more diverse. The study eventually made <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ruso.12211/full">its way</a> into the peer-reviewed journal, Rural Sociology.</p>
<p>As part of the study, I built four word clouds, visual representations of words I gathered from survey questions. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these particular images show more than thousands of sentences ever could: the divergent worldviews of these two groups. And they show us an angle of the aforementioned political divide that has been missed. </p>
<p>Individuals in each group were asked to “select three terms that describe what ‘social justice’ means to you” and “select three terms describing what ‘autonomy’ means to you.”</p>
<p>Before giving their answer, participants were shown a list of some 50 terms, designed by me to relate specifically to each question. Other terms were explored as well, but only two terms – social justice and autonomy – are discussed here because they complement each other in interesting ways. </p>
<p>The terms respondents chose were then fed into software that generated word clouds, which are graphics that show the most-used terms in large letters, the least-used terms in smaller letters. (Disclaimer: I make no claims that these clouds speak for all Americans, farmers, North Dakotans, metro residents, etc. I also recognize that the cooperative experience could color the responses of those in the urban sample.)</p>
<h2>Individual vs. collective</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most immediate contrast with these social justice responses lies in how the rural North Dakotans’ image evokes a number of words associated with punishment, policing and due process, such as “eye for an eye” and “right to attorney.” These are terms associated with criminal law and the criminal justice system. </p>
<p>The terms chosen by the urban land cooperative, in contrast, made no reference to punishment or policing when describing their visions of social justice. Instead, they chose terms that overwhelmingly emphasized, to quote the most used term to come from this group, equity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207720/original/file-20180223-108150-h1d1j7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Word clouds provided by Michael Carolan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was also a divergence between groups in terms of whether social justice was something individuals achieve or whether it denotes a collective response, where a community (or even society) as a whole ensures justice for individuals. To explain this point requires that I introduce two more word cloud images, produced in response to the autonomy question. </p>
<p>These autonomy word clouds demonstrate that the above contrasts are no fluke and are important for two reasons. First, they validate that there is something “deeper” afoot. And second, they inform the social justice images. </p>
<p>Note the repeated emphasis the North Dakota group placed on terms like “individualism,” “self-determination,” “self-rule” and “authority.” In philosophical parlance, these terms align with the tradition of individualism, a position that emphasizes self-reliance and that stresses human independence and liberty. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207723/original/file-20180223-108119-15egg04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Word clouds provided by Michael Carolan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These terms also tie in well with the North Dakota group’s social justice word cloud, with its emphasis on words that emphasize individual responsibility, e.g., “eye for an eye,” and individual freedoms, “fair laws” and “right to attorney.” </p>
<p>This stands a world away from the urban farmer cooperative group, who associated autonomy with “interdependence,” “cooperation,” “solidarity” and “community.” It might appear counterintuitive to link autonomy with concepts like interdependence and solidarity, until you hear individuals from this group explain their position. </p>
<p>A single mother, for example, spoke directly to how independence arises for members of this group because of interdependence, rather than in spite of it. </p>
<p>“We can accomplish a heck of a lot more together; I feel like I have more control over my life, more independence, when we can rely on each other.” She added, “I certainly appreciate how sharing childcare opportunities as a community gives me the freedom to garden. But we can’t forget that farming has always been a collective effort, of sharing seed and knowledge and work.” </p>
<p>The cooperative group’s views of social justice focused significantly on community outcomes and injustices as opposed to purely individual ones. This point about the urban group expressing something resembling a collectivist understanding of social justice came out especially clear in the qualitative interviews with members of the cooperative. </p>
<p>Among the members’ <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ruso.12211/full">statements</a> was one given by a man while he was erecting tomato cages with his two brothers, uncle and another man who 12 months prior was living in his home country of Costa Rica. Asked what social justice meant to him, he said, “Justice isn’t about charity; it’s about community empowerment; not about what you’re given but about intentionally realizing your aspirations collectively.” </p>
<h2>Disagreements can lead to dialogue</h2>
<p>The above images reflect disagreements, to be sure, and contextualize our inability to find common ground on such issues as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/24694452.2016.1270193?journalCode=raag21">climate change</a>, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/23/bipartisan-support-for-some-gun-proposals-stark-partisan-divisions-on-many-others/">guns</a> and the <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/2-government-regulation-and-the-social-safety-net/">social safety net</a>. If one starts from the premise that an individual can only make good, right and just decisions when they’re left alone, then their position on those hot-button issues will look a lot different from those who think individual freedom is enhanced when those liberties are balanced out by constraints determined by ideas about the collective good. In short, consensus is a stretch when one “side” preaches self-reliance and self-rule while the other speaks of “independence” and needing to “rely on each other” in the same sentence, as the mother from the cooperative did. </p>
<p>So what does this study of these two groups and their ideas mean? Does bridging the political divide in the U.S. mean groups like this need to settle all of their political disputes and arrive at consensus about everything? </p>
<p>Of course not. Disagreements are good when they encourage dialogue and debate. </p>
<p>What we have now in our country appears to sometimes border on combativeness if not outright hate, which has me deeply concerned, both as a sociologist and a citizen. </p>
<p>Before we can hope to repair the divides (plural, since these differences clearly go beyond rural-urban) we need to first understand how deep they cut. You wouldn’t prescribe a Band-Aid for a gash that requires stitches. The following are three concluding thoughts as we triage this wound. </p>
<h2>Replace caricatures with actual encounters</h2>
<p>First, the opposing worldviews illustrated in the word clouds have less to do with each group having different levels of knowledge and more to do with processing knowledge through very different filters. Thus, settling political disputes by arguing over “the facts” is futile, at least in some instances. </p>
<p>Second, a few respondents from each group appeared to be straddling “worlds.” People like this can be very helpful in bridging our political divides. Instead of building alliances based on geopolitical identities (e.g., ethnicity, political affiliation, rural/urban), we might explore how this process could start by engaging those who, like these few respondents, share similar worldviews. </p>
<p>Third, these worlds risk growing further apart the more their respective inhabitants look inward. The alternative would involve creating situations where we can get to know some of the people and livelihoods that are a world away from what we otherwise experience. That means the caricatures of rural and urban America need to be replaced with actual encounters. </p>
<p>Whoever thinks fences make for good neighbors has been infected by today’s political climate. What we need are bridges. It is time we start building them – and walking across the political divide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Carolan receives funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea and by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture . </span></em></p>There’s a new way to reveal America’s political divide. One researcher finds the differences between groups that are normally crudely described as ‘right-left’ can be better explained by word clouds.Michael Carolan, Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Affairs, College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869092017-11-14T02:42:44Z2017-11-14T02:42:44ZHow social media fires people’s passions – and builds extremist divisions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194018/original/file-20171109-13337-wt1fzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Passionate feelings can lead to extreme divisions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/quarrel-between-woman-man-screaming-each-645677146">pathdoc/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The people of the United States continue to learn how polarized and divided the nation has become. In one study released in late October by the Pew Research Center, Americans were found to have <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/23/in-polarized-era-fewer-americans-hold-a-mix-of-conservative-and-liberal-views">become increasingly partisan</a> in their views. On issues as diverse as health care, immigration, race and sexuality, Americans today hold more extreme and more divergent views than they did a decade ago. The reason for this dramatic shift is a device owned by <a href="http://techlatino.org/2017/01/pew-u-s-smartphone-ownership-broadband-penetration-reached-record-levels-in-2016/">more than three out of every four Americans</a>. </p>
<figure><img src="http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/06/polarization505px_30fps.gif"><figcaption><span class="caption">Americans’ political beliefs have become increasingly polarized. <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/7-things-to-know-about-polarization-in-america/">Pew Research Center</a></span></figcaption></figure>
<p>As social media has emerged over the last two decades, I have been studying how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146708325382">it changes innovation</a>, and researching the effects of internet communications on consumer opinions and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2259683">marketing</a>. I developed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netnography">netnography</a>, one of the most widely used qualitative research techniques for understanding how people behave on social media. And I have used that method to better understand a variety of challenging problems that face not only businesses but governments and society at large.</p>
<p>What I have found has shaken up some of the most firmly held ideas that marketers had about consumers – such as how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-2373(99)00004-3">internet interest groups</a> can drive online purchasing and the power of stories, utopian messages and moral lessons to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.67.3.19.18657">connect buyers with brands</a> and each other. In one of my latest studies, my co-authors and I debunk the idea that technology might <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/how-digital-age-rewrites-rule-book-consumer-behavior">make consumers more rational</a> and price-conscious. Instead, we found that smartphones and web applications were increasing people’s passions while also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw061">driving them to polarizing extremes</a>. </p>
<h2>How social media divides people</h2>
<p>When people express themselves through social media, they communicate collectively. Rachel Ashman, Tony Patterson and I studied sharing of images of food in an intensive three-year ethnographic and netnographic study of a variety of online and physical sites. We collected and analyzed thousands of pictures, conducted 17 personal interviews and set up a dedicated research webpage where dozens of people shared their “food porn” stories. </p>
<p>Our results indicate that people share images of food for a number of reasons, including the desire to nurture others with photos of home-cooked food, to express belonging to certain interest groups like vegans or paleos, or to compete about, for example, who could make the most decadent dessert. But this sharing can become competitive, pushing participants to one-up each other, sharing images of food that look less and less like what regular people eat every day. </p>
<p>Here is how it works. Many people start by sharing food images only with people they know well. But once they broaden out to a wider group on social media, several unexpected and startling things begin to happen. First, they find sites where they can feel comfortable expressing their opinions to a like-minded “audience.” </p>
<p>This audience creates a community-type feeling, expressing respect and belonging for certain kinds of messages and outrage or contempt for others. Communications innovators in social media communities often also create new language forms, such as the frustrated guys in men’s-rights-oriented social media forums on Reddit bringing new life to the 19th-century word “<a href="https://qz.com/1092037/the-alt-right-is-creating-its-own-dialect-heres-a-complete-guide/">hypergamy</a>,” or young people creating sophisticated emoji codes in their <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/08/how-teens-use-social-media/">relationship texting</a>. </p>
<p>Through language and example, community members educate one another. They reinforce each others’ thinking and communication. Members of social media communities direct raw emotions into particular interests. For example, a general fear about job security might become channeled through the feedback loops on Facebook into an <a href="http://www.pe.com/2017/09/15/immigration-talk-was-often-heated-but-social-media-experiment-proves-we-can-talk-to-one-another/">interest in immigrant jobs</a> and immigration policy.</p>
<p>Those feedback loops have even more sensational effects. People use social media to communicate their need for things like money, attention, security and prestige. But once those people become a part of a social media platform, our research reveals how they start to look for wider audiences. Those audiences show their interest and approval by liking, sharing and commenting. And those mechanisms drive future social media behavior.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193619/original/file-20171107-1041-54fii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A monstrous example of ‘food porn.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bitypic.com/media/1634833723450822346_1243351468">Priyan Shailesh Parab</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In our study of food image sharing, we wondered why the most popular food porn images depicted massive hamburgers that were impossible to eat, dripping with bacon grease, gummy worms and sparklers. Or super pizza that contained tacos, macaroni and cheese and fried chicken. The answer was that the algorithms that drive participation and attention-getting in social media, the addictive “gamification” aspects such as likes and shares, invariably favored the odd and unusual. When someone wanted to broaden out beyond his or her immediate social networks, one of the most effective ways to achieve mass appeal turned out to be by turning to the extreme. </p>
<p>Taking an existing norm in the community (massive burgers, say) and expanding upon it almost guaranteed a poster a few hundred likes, a dozen supportive comments and 15 minutes of social media glory. As each user tried to top the outrageous image of the user coming before, the extremes of food porn ratcheted toward ever more sensational towering burgers and cakes. Desire for what was once the extremes began to seem normal. And the ends separated farther from the few who remained in the middle.</p>
<h2>The extreme state of the world</h2>
<p>In our research, we suggested that the exact same mechanisms are at work in general society. As the <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/23/in-polarized-era-fewer-americans-hold-a-mix-of-conservative-and-liberal-views/">Pew research</a> revealed, American beliefs have become more partisan and more extreme. Religious beliefs are more fundamentalist. Political figures around the world are more polarized. Language is more crude. </p>
<p>Although the divided state of Americans is a bellwether for some of these unwelcome developments, the phenomenon seems to be global. A recent <a href="http://mashable.com/2017/10/24/facebook-social-media-rohingya-muslim-myanmar-fake-news/">Mashable article</a> blamed social media for fueling the horrific ethnic cleansing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-the-persecution-of-myanmars-rohingya-84040">Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar</a>, a country where Facebook viewed on mobile devices has become for many people the sole source of news. Hate speech on social media has been a major and growing problem in Europe and <a href="http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2015/04/21/addressing-hate-speech-african-digital-media">Africa</a> for several years now. Around the world, social media is feeding strong partisan talk with attention. Moderation and a balanced approach to ideas and discourse seem to be fading away.</p>
<p>The fault for these developments lies, at least in part, in people’s consumption of technology. Even without foreign interference, our research demonstrates that social media is built for polarization and extremes. The basic engagement mechanisms of popular social media sites like Facebook drive people to think and communicate in ever more extreme ways.</p>
<p>As people experience how these technological and social changes play out online, they will have to figure out how to adapt and change their behaviors – or risk becoming increasingly divided and driven to extremes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Kozinets does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The way people use social media – and the algorithms inside those systems – increases passions, and drives people to polarizing extremes.Robert Kozinets, Hufschmid Chair of Strategic Public Relations, USC Annenberg School for Communication and JournalismLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/826302017-10-04T01:09:49Z2017-10-04T01:09:49ZWhy people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187186/original/file-20170922-17267-1l4suua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who's afraid of rising sea levels?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/New-Arctic-Icebergs-Gallery/7348e01bbde5401090364c1ad8a14746/10/1">David Goldman/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When asked about major threats to their country, Europeans are more likely than Americans to cite global climate change, according to a <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/08/01/globally-people-point-to-isis-and-climate-change-as-leading-security-threats/">Pew Research Center survey</a>. Just 56 percent of Americans see climate change as a major threat, versus an average of 64 percent of Europeans surveyed.</p>
<p>Why the difference? Like climate data itself, data regarding public concern for climate change are “noisy.” Public response can vary depending on what’s going on in the news that week. Surveys of these types of surveys <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wcc.120">find no single explanation</a> for how the public perceives the threat of climate change.</p>
<p>Of course, many explanations exist. As a climatologist who has taught university classes and given public lectures on global climate change for 30 years, I find it clear that public concern about climate change has evolved dramatically over the past three decades. In the U.S., now more than ever, it seems tied to ideology. </p>
<h1>Knowing the facts</h1>
<p>Does <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.04.008">scientific literacy</a> influence responses? Some psychologists think so. Indeed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2997">some surveys</a> show that Europeans have significantly greater scientific knowledge about the causes of climate change than Americans. </p>
<p>It’s possible that such knowledge translates into a sense of responsibility for mitigating climate change. But having more general scientific knowledge is not as relevant as knowing <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2039">specifically about climate change</a>. </p>
<p>A person’s outlook on the world can also complicate matters.
<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/5-ways-americans-and-europeans-are-different/">Another recent Pew survey</a> found that Americans are more likely to believe they control their own destiny and that they “tend to prioritize individual liberty, while Europeans tend to value the role of the state to ensure no one in society is in need.” </p>
<p>Research on the respective roles of scientific literacy and worldview reaches different conclusions. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2039">Psychologist Sophie Guy and colleagues argue</a> that knowing the causes of climate change makes people more willing to accept the reality of climate change or to moderate their ideological opposition to it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187188/original/file-20170922-17241-pkmcoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nuisance flooding – flooding from ordinary high tides exacerbated by sea level rise and accompanying land subsidence – has increased 400 percent in Charleston, South Carolina since 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Climate-Countdown-A-City-Acts/95b8b400b2fc42ac8f5b247eb81e1b35/7/1">Stephen B. Morton/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, Yale scholar <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547">Dan Kahan and colleagues</a> find that people with the highest level of scientific literacy often use that literacy to retain and justify prior beliefs – what they call the “polarizing impact of science literacy.” In other words: “I’m smart, I’ve read the evidence and it confirms my prior understanding.” Climate change reflects a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9072-z">threat</a> not only to one’s local environment, but also to one’s worldview.</p>
<h1>Political affiliation</h1>
<p>When you look more closely at recent survey responses in the U.S., the most striking and consistent finding is that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.10.004">political affiliation</a> influences perceptions of climate change. </p>
<p>In the U.S., Democrats report, at consistently higher rates than Republicans, that climate change exists. Merely substituting the term “global warming” – now a politically charged catchword – for “climate change” <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1993-1">makes the differences larger</a>. </p>
<p>The divide between parties within the U.S. far exceeds the divide found between the U.S. as a whole and Europe. Political divisions also exist in Europe, and public opinion polls in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.016">U.K.</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2015.1094727">Norway</a> show that party similarly influences the perceived threat of climate change. However, there’s some evidence that the U.S. Republican Party is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12122">anomalous among conservative parties</a> internationally. In other words, U.S. Republicans are more starkly anti-climate change than other conservative parties internationally.</p>
<p>It’s possible that the strong two-party system in the U.S. leads to a more binary mode of thinking on this issue that does not accurately represent that of the scientific community. Sociologist <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.08.003">Aaron McCright and his colleagues</a> argue that the high number of Americans identifying with the political right explains why the U.S., unlike other wealthy countries, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-008-9429-6">less concerned</a> about climate change. </p>
<h1>Closing the gap</h1>
<p>Some suggest that the political divide has fueled an industry of climate change deniers and skeptics, distorting public perception about climate change science. Science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway argue in their book <a href="http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/">“Merchants of Doubt”</a> that denial is about more than the science. It’s about political and economic systems that individuals hold dear. It also can result from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212469799">differences in professional culture or personal values</a>. </p>
<p>In the U.S., many of the most vocal skeptics and deniers of climate change emerge from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09644010802055576">conservative think tanks</a> that revere the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629616301864">industrial capitalist system</a>.</p>
<p>In Europe, differences between countries can also be explained by the <a href="https://orca.cf.ac.uk/98660/7/EPCC.pdf">voices of conservative think tanks and the media</a>, but these voices are more influential in the U.S. than anywhere else because of the two-party system. Partisan clashes about climate change emerge from influential, well-funded sources that wield great influence on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2016.1263433">Congress, the media and ultimately the public</a>. By contrast, most European countries have more than two parties, and arguably the political influence of corporations is lower. </p>
<p>Given the political divide on climate change in the U.S., addressing this 21st-century threat will require creative thinking that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-8159.2005.09566.x-i1">recognizes different worldviews</a> and “beliefs” in climate change. <a href="https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/">The U.S. House Climate Solutions Caucus</a> is a step in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory J. Carbone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Europeans are, on average, more likely than Americans to say they fear climate change. What explains the gap?Gregory J. Carbone, Professor of Geography, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846912017-09-27T19:03:23Z2017-09-27T19:03:23ZDefying Trump, Alabama GOP picks Roy Moore – and embraces the same old politics of rage<p>The Roy Moore and Luther Strange Republican primary runoff in Alabama wasn’t quiet, staid or dignified. </p>
<p>Set against the backdrop of Strange’s appointment by the former – and now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/08/the-long-strange-affair-saga-of-alabama-gov-robert-bentley-is-about-to-get-serious/?utm_term=.02328db52f48">disgraced – Gov. Robert Bentley</a>, Strange and Moore jockeyed to position themselves as President Donald Trump’s most reliable Senate surrogate. Only Strange had Trump’s endorsement. And yet, Alabama voters, who overwhelmingly support the president, backed the insurgent and at times <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/09/alabama_supreme_court_chief_ju.html">inflammatory</a> Moore by a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/roy-moore-wins-alabamas-republican-senate-primary-defeating-trump-backed-candidate.html">nearly 10 point margin</a>.</p>
<p>Alabama politics are often pigeonholed as reliably conservative. True, the Republican Party dominates the state, but that shouldn’t suggest Alabama doesn’t have competitive elections – it’s just that they only rarely occur between Democrats and Republicans. Alabama is what some <a href="http://utpress.org/title/southern-politics-state-nation/">scholars of southern politics like V. O. Key</a> might term “bi-factional.” It is a single-party state, but within that party, factions vie for control. </p>
<p>Some were surprised by how competitive this special election was. Not me. I’ve lived in Alabama nearly my entire life, first as a student and now as a professor of political science at Auburn University-Montgomery. For those of us who have taken a long glance at Alabama politics, this special election was not only unsurprising – it was downright predictable.</p>
<h2>Alabama politics then and now</h2>
<p>To understand Alabama politics today, you need to go back to 1986. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187891/original/file-20170927-24193-1cgempv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George C Wallace.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-politics-of-rage/">George C. Wallace</a>, the longtime Democratic governor of the state, had decided the future of his political career. To a packed and at times emotional audience, he revealed that he would never again seek elected office, ending his nearly quarter-century reign in Alabama. His decision left a political chasm in a state that for many years had known “Wallaceism” – a political ideology unto itself, centered upon its namesake’s cult of personality. </p>
<p>In this void, two contenders emerged who would come to represent the future of Alabama politics. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/10/16/356728052/alabama-attorney-generals-1976-letter-told-kkk-off-in-3-short-words">Bill Baxley</a>, Wallace’s lieutenant governor and former state attorney general who successfully prosecuted a Ku Klux Klan member for bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, received the Democratic nod. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/01hunt1.html?mcubz=1">Guy Hunt</a>, for many years a lonely Republican in a state dominated by Democrats, became the Republican nominee. Here was a man who had been crushed in a similar gubernatorial bid just eight years earlier. As the 1986 election got underway, many assumed Hunt would repeat his previous performance. But unlike 1978, Wallaceism was on the decline, and traditional factions were reemerging.</p>
<p>Historically, Alabama politics have pitted moneyed industrial and agricultural interests against poor grassroots populism. Wallace’s career was noteworthy in that he managed to harness nearly every element of populism at one point or another, vacillating between racial moderation and white supremacy, and all the way back again before he was done. </p>
<p>In his early career, Wallace adopted the populism of his one-time mentor, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/11/22/james-folsom-79-colorful-governor-of-alabama-in-40s-and-50s-dies/72ee6497-bf2f-4d64-aebb-bf042daad782/?utm_term=.458eb64b0742">Gov. “Big” Jim Folsom</a>, who campaigned for the everyman on roads, schools and jobs. </p>
<p>But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/347/483/case.html">1954 Brown v. Board of Education</a> ruling, this brand of populism became untenable in Alabama. Whites of all political stripes demanded “massive resistance” from their politicians and offered their votes to whichever candidate gave the staunchest support for segregation. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/sept98/wallace.htm">Wallace was burned in the 1958 gubernatorial election</a> when John Patterson defeated his more moderate, Folsom-style campaign. Wallace is alleged to have remarked after his loss to never again get “out-niggered” by another segregationist. He kept that promise. From 1962 with his first election as governor, Wallaceism dominated state politics with its emphasis on what <a href="http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-politics-of-rage/">historian Dan Carter</a> has termed “the politics of rage,” which focused almost religiously upon whites’ racial resentments, fears and anxieties.</p>
<p>Wallace transcended parties and factions – and became what <a href="http://utpress.org/title/southern-politics-state-nation/">political scientist V. O. Key called</a> a “lone-wolf” politician. Although his personality attracted a powerful group of followers for a time, the faithful quickly drifted away once he left the political stage. After Wallace, Alabama Democrats predominantly represented the poor, the teachers’ union, plaintiffs’ lawyers and civil rights organizations. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, by the 1980s, a nascent Republican Party had emerged in the state. Alabama Republicans were increasingly <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/After-Wallace,34.aspx">young, educated, financially better off and white</a>. Many simply did not remember the events that had led their parents to fall in love with Wallace or the Democrats. Culturally, they were more attuned to their evangelical grassroots and Reaganism. Republicans in this period were bankrolled by factions that represented business and land – longtime stakeholders in Alabama politics.</p>
<p>Republicans and Democrats engaged in a roughly 25-year battle for control of the state. </p>
<p>In 1986, Republican Hunt defeated Democrat and former state attorney general Baxley in a major upset. By 1997, Republicans controlled the state delegation to the U.S. Senate; in 2001, the state Supreme Court; in 2003, the governor’s mansion; and in 2011, Republicans captured the state House and Senate for the first time since Reconstruction. They then consolidated their gains with <a href="http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/politics/southunionstreet/2017/01/20/12-alabama-legislative-districts-ruled-unconstitutional/96830710/">punishing partisan gerrymanders</a> that further eroded Democratic shares of the House and Senate. </p>
<p>Alabama is once again a single-party state, but the factions that comprise that party are beginning to come apart.</p>
<h2>The dog that caught the car</h2>
<p>Paradoxically, the worst thing that might have befallen Alabama Republicans was their total victory over the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>Today, it’s almost hackneyed to antagonize state Democrats for their support of unions or abortion access. Democrats are no threat to Republican hegemony. Rather, the total success Republicans have achieved at the Democrats’ expense has exposed the longstanding rifts that separate Alabama’s political factions but were only held together so long as Democrats were viable sources of opposition. Without them, bi-factionalism has returned, pitting those with money against those without it; those with college degrees against those with none; those who are being held hostage by the state’s struggling education and public health systems against those who have thrived. The grassroots feel used.</p>
<p>Like Wallace, Roy Moore is a party unto himself. He channels the grassroots’ resentments and anxieties and makes them feel proud of their identities, predominantly as white Christians. </p>
<p>Alabamians have tended to fall prey to the demagogue when they felt most anxious, resentful and angry. The election of Barack Obama, America’s first black president, helped catalyze these feelings among the population’s white majority, and Trump’s election was nothing more than gasoline to the fire with its overt appeals to racism and Christian identity. </p>
<p>If the Alabama Democrats are clever – and I don’t see any evidence to suggest this is the case – they will position themselves either to peel away disaffected “Never Moore” types of Republicans, or they will run counterpopulism candidates who adopt socially conservative and economically liberal policies. </p>
<p>I don’t expect Moore’s Democratic challenger in the general election, Doug Jones, to run this kind of campaign. I also have a dim outlook for Democrats’ efforts to win legislative seats in next year’s midterms. History leads me to believe that Wallaceism – the style that initially led him to statewide success – will triumph in Alabama so long as the politics of rage are alive and well. The election of Roy Moore seems to suggest it is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar from Alabama’s Auburn University at Montgomery explains how Republicans have slowly but utterly taken over Alabama politics, even while squabbling amongst themselves.David Hughes, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Auburn University at Montgomery Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/768332017-05-31T02:11:25Z2017-05-31T02:11:25ZDoes national service help heal America’s divisions?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171381/original/file-20170530-25261-dg10nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teach For America teacher Sergio Santiago looks over an assignment with a student.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/hssiv1">pennstatenews/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump’s budget proposes getting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/politics/trump-budget-americorps-peace-corps-service.html?_r=0">the government out of the business of national service</a>. This comes at a time when the election has divided Americans like few in history. And individuals from different walks of life in our fractured nation have <a href="http://bowlingalone.com">fewer opportunities to have genuine encounters with one another</a>.</p>
<p>Civilian national service typically requires participants to work on a social ill and immerse themselves in vulnerable communities. New research demonstrates that national service programs like Teach For America can bring people together. They cultivate civic responsibility and a shared identity with the communities they serve. </p>
<h2>Divided by class and color</h2>
<p>Important class and racial divisions came into clear view during the 2016 election cycle. Notably, beliefs about the causes of inequality and poverty differ significantly by both <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Beliefs_About_Inequality.html?id=rdzmjrv74w8C">class</a> and <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3620441.html">race</a>. These differences have led to disagreement on what policies can best solve pressing issues ranging from education to health. </p>
<p>The more advantaged – the wealthy, more educated and <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10831.html">politically connected</a> – typically believe in the fairness of the current economic, social and political system. The advantaged see hard work as key to achieving their privileged positions. In contrast, disadvantaged Americans tend to believe that while hard work is important, it is simply not enough to get ahead in an unfair system. </p>
<p>What happens when the most advantaged members of our society participate in national service, immersing themselves in the lives of struggling members of our society? Do they learn to see the world differently?</p>
<h2>Cultivating understanding</h2>
<p>Early advocates of national service programs pointed to the power of national service in cultivating understanding between groups. In <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-gratitude.html">“Gratitude,” William F. Buckley</a> recalled how his wartime experience was a poignant reminder of the “pulsation of consanguinity” that united the “Laramie cowboy” and the “litterateur in Greenwich Village.” Service for one’s country, he argued, can “ever so slightly elevate us from the trough of self-concern and self-devotion.” </p>
<p>Reflecting on the effects of military service, <a href="http://laphamsquarterly.org/states-war/proposing-moral-equivalent-war">U.S. philosopher William James</a> argued for civilian national service. The U.S. government could enlist young Americans to work among the poor. James noted that civilian national service can foster “healthier sympathies,” which are necessary in healthy democracies. </p>
<p>Decades later, President John F. Kennedy famously said “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” This was a rallying cry for over a million Americans to serve, and ultimately contributed to the creation of organized national service like the <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov">Peace Corps</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps">AmeriCorps</a>.</p>
<p>But how can we know if these national service really foster understanding and shared purpose? According to <a href="https://my.vanderbilt.edu/ceciliamo/">recent research I conducted</a> with <a href="http://www.cpre.org/katharine-katie-conn">Katharine Conn from Columbia University</a>, national service addressing issues of inequality and poverty can have powerful bridging effects. </p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/includes/WP2017_3_Mo.pdf">study</a> focused on <a href="https://www.teachforamerica.org">Teach For America</a>. TFA is a national service program that integrates top college graduates into low income communities for two years. While TFA is <a href="http://teachforall.org/en/news/teach-america-welcomes-its-most-diverse-teaching-corps">incredibly diverse</a>, we consider it a corps of “advantaged” individuals because each participant is a top college graduate. Only <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf">33 percent of Americans hold a college degree</a> in contrast to 100 percent of TFA participants. TFA is also a highly selective program. </p>
<p>We collected survey responses from over 32,000 TFA applicants between 2007 and 2015, and implemented a “<a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Edavidlee/wp/w14723.pdf">regression discontinuity design</a>” to determine the effects of participating in TFA. Simply put, we compared the responses of people who were barely admitted into TFA to those who were barely rejected, as the two groups are similar apart from their participation in the program. </p>
<p>We find that national service has profound and lasting effects on its participants.</p>
<h2>Building empathy</h2>
<p>TFA participants are more likely to empathize with poor families, and be attuned to injustices faced by low-income Americans. </p>
<p>For example, TFA participants are 7.4 percentage points more likely to believe that systemic injustice contributes to the income-based education achievement gap. The <a href="https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/widening-academic-achievement-gap-between-rich-and-poor-new-evidence-and-possible">income-based “achievement gap”</a> in education refers to the disparity in academic performance between high- and low-income students. </p>
<p>TFA participants are 8.5 percentage points more likely to agree that poor families value education just as much as richer families. And they are 11.3 percentage points more likely to believe that low-income students have fewer opportunities than high-income students.</p>
<p>When thinking about low-income Americans, participants of TFA have less “actor-observer bias.” This psychology term refers to a tendency to attribute one’s own setbacks to external factors like an unfair process, and attribute another person’s setbacks to traits like laziness. </p>
<p>In other words, TFA participants are more likely to attribute poverty to underlying systemic issues rather than to a lack of individual effort. We also saw an uptick in the belief that government should take more responsibility to ensure everyone is provided for. There is an increased sense that hard work is not enough to bring about success, and that people are poor because of an unfair society as opposed to laziness and lack of willpower.</p>
<p>TFA participation is also linked with less racial resentment and greater dissatisfaction with the treatment of minority groups. In other words, TFA participants are more likely to attribute racial inequality to systemic and historical factors as opposed to lack of effort on the part of black Americans. For instance, they are 12 percentage points more likely to attribute difficulty in social mobility on the part of black Americans to generations of slavery and racial discrimination. </p>
<p>We also find evidence of decreased racial prejudice. TFA participants have less <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html">implicit skin-color bias</a> than nonparticipants.</p>
<p>Participation in TFA translates to feeling closer to racial minorities. Those who served a majority African American student population expressed a 19 percentage point increase in feelings of closeness to the African American community. Those who taught in majority Hispanic regions expressed a 14.5 percentage point increase in feelings of closeness to the Hispanic community.</p>
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<p>In a fractured nation, national service programs that enable participants to confront issues of poverty and develop deep connections between different groups can enhance empathy and understanding. They can push individuals to reexamine their assumptions and think critically about effective public policy.</p>
<p>Before Lyndon B. Johnson was the 36th U.S. president, he served as a teacher, working with low-income children of Mexican-American farm workers. He worked in a community much like the communities that TFA and other national service programs serve in today.</p>
<p>It is perhaps not a coincidence that he went on to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which, among other things, created Volunteers in Service to America, a domestic counterpart to the Peace Corps. </p>
<p>It is also perhaps not a coincidence that he signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. At the heart of the legislation was Title I, which earmarked federal funding for poor children. “By passing this bill,” Johnson noted, “we bridge the gap between helplessness and hope for more than 5 million educationally deprived children.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cecilia Hyunjung Mo has recently received funding from Humanity United, USAID, US Department of Labor, Vanderbilt University and the World Bank. She was also a 2002 Teach For America Corps Member in Los Angeles, California.</span></em></p>Teach for America was created to bring more resources to disadvantaged communities. New research shows that the participants also learn a few things.Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.