Digital Hyper-Partisanship: Exploring the Fate of American Politics

Presenter(s)

Samson Cantor

Abstract or Description

The United States faces an ongoing battle with political polarization, a schism that continues to be magnified by social media. Although many factors accelerated this divide, the psychosocial implications of constant social media interaction for interpersonal political discussion are massive and largely negative. Political discourse in America continues to evolve, yet the new age of social media marks an era of negative, inflammatory cross-party interactions which largely lack civility and cooperation. The most popular political content posted to social media portrays differences in political beliefs as an ideological war, recruiting platform users to engage with large amounts of media without regard for its quality or effects. This phenomenon of negative cross-party interactions leading to larger content consumption is the fundamental basis for accelerating political polarization in America; social media corporations embrace the increased advertising revenue and profits they receive from further engagement. By fostering these interactions and prioritizing profit over partisanship, social media corporations are complicit in the polarization cycle outlined in Wilson, Parker, and Feinberg’s “Polarization in the contemporary political and media landscape,” refusing to acknowledge or act on the institutional role they play in American political polarization. The permitted manifestation of polarization in social media causes radicalism among liberals and conservatives, leaving little opportunity to slow down the growing divide in the absence of user awareness and neglect of corporate responsibility. While there is still hope in the form of a reimagined social space, either social media users must overcome their inherent biases to catalyze this shift, or social media corporations must forego profit in favor of unity.