“Democracy requires citizens to see things from one another’s point of view, but instead we’re more and more enclosed in our own bubbles. Democracy requires a reliance on shared facts; instead we’re being offered parallel but separate universes.”
Polarisation is driven by the growing attention and legitimisation of us-versus-them narratives. Thus, if we want to understand how a society polarises, we need to understand how these narratives spread. Often, it is one of three actors that are held responsible for this problem: the media, politics, or the internet. However, whilst tackling polarisation, we have observed that in the spreading of us-versus-them narratives, these three actors equally share the responsibility with a fourth, usually ignored, actor: the audience. Together, these four actors push for polarisation, both consciously and unconsciously, in an interconnected loop of interactions.
It is important to note, however, that most of these interactions are actually fundamental to the functioning of our modern-day democracies. Politicians need to govern, whilst at the same time being scrutinised by the public they serve. The media form a fundamental link between these two, as they relay the messages between both parties, whilst also keeping them in check through conducting journalistic research. On top of that, the internet, and social media in particular, has recently become a second, sometimes more direct, channel between politics and the public, whilst at the same time creating new connections between media outlets and their audiences.
“It is within their role in this democratic feedback loop, that each actor has certain incentives to polarise.”
“When left unchecked, these incentives create a downward spiral.”
It is within their natural and necessary role in this democratic feedback loop, that each actor has certain incentives to polarise. These incentives are all heavily influenced by the actor’s relation to the others in the loop. When society leaves these incentives unchecked, they can easily snowball into each other, creating a downward spiral that the deeper it goes, the harder it becomes to break.
As such, we believe that a truly thorough explanation of polarisation needs to centralise the principles of this loop (the interlinked relations of media, audience, politics, and the internet) and the downward spiral (in that, once polarisation kicks in, there is an increasing risk of escalation), thus providing a systematic understanding of the various incentives of polarisation. In order to understand these complex dynamics, we present the MAPI [Media/Audience/Politics/Internet] -spiral as a simple representation of our theory.
In the following sections we will take a closer look at each of the four actors in the MAPI-spiral. We will examine their specific roles and incentives that can push our society further down the path of polarisation, and provide a couple of practical recommendations that can safeguard them from polarisation in the future.
Mass communicators, like newspapers and television networks, are often blamed for their divisive storytelling and the role they play in spreading us-versus-them narratives. Of course, they have a large role to play. After all, they occupy a large and crucial space in our open, democratic society. How else would we know what is going on beyond the borders of our immediate surroundings if not for their stories, videos, interviews, and research. On top of that, they also function as an important power balance check between the governing politicians and the larger public. As such, they have a major influence on the way we perceive the world.
We might need the media — but they also need us. Since their entire being is based on mass communication, it is also a core responsibility for media outlets to maintain an engaged audience, whether they are a broad million-audience television network or a local, weekly newspaper. It is this very responsibility, which is often grounded in the economic need for sales and advertisement revenues, that forms a major incentive to use polarising practices.
The media need stories that sell — and nothing seems to sell better than outrage. Whether conscious or not, the media are frequently looking to trigger polarised groups; sharing harsh headlines that utilise us-versus-them narratives to create sensation. In a similar vein, they frequently give a lot of attention to the most extreme and triggering events and opinions. When these kinds of methods keep resulting in higher engagement rates — and thus better profits — they are only incentivised to do it more often.
“Nothing seems to sell better than outrage.”
“The media have become pressured to keep up with this new reality in order to maintain their revenue.”
In recent years, this has been worsened by the fact that media companies, both large and small, have been facing a steady decline in their sources of income. Newspapers lose subscribers, the income from advertisements are dwindling, and more frequently than not, established media companies face competition from outlets that put out their stories for free. Many of these factors are due to the rise of the internet and social media companies who have shaken up both the way audiences access media stories, and the way advertisements generate income and distribution.
As such, the media have become pressured to keep up with this new reality in order to maintain their revenue. This has often led to budget cuts in the news-rooms, making it all the more difficult for journalists to deliver well-researched and fact-checked stories. All these issues combined have resulted in an erosion of good journalism that places more effort in the stories that matter, rather than the stories that sell. This erosion will only worsen as the MAPI-spiral keeps pushing a society further into a polarised state.
FOR THE MEDIA TO PREVENT FURTHER ESCALATION:
DON’T TREAT EVERYTHING AS A YES-VS-NO DEBATE
Stories usually sell better when two opposing parties are put in front of each other to fight it out. More often than not, this results in an oversimplified and provocative reflection of the issue at hand. Journalists should do more than just report on the conflict; they should also offer new and bigger perspectives, and create room for nuance.
FRAMING IS IMPORTANT
Even the subtlest stereotypes can work in a stigmatising, generalising and thus polarising manner. Common examples of this involve labels such as ‘the foreigner’, ‘the angry white man’, or ‘the gutmensch’. Always question stigmas and generalisations: are they grounded? What are they based on? And are they not actually part of a negative image of a certain ‘other’?
GO AGAINST THE HYPE
Reporting on social tensions is a big responsibility of the media. However, the Media needs to be wary that their hyped and ‘breaking’ stories do not turn into free advertisements for small polarising factions. It is crucial to take a step back from time to time, to prevent the fires of polarisation from gaining even more fuel.
VERIFY YOUR INFORMATION
Speculation and unverified information can be damaging, especially in crisis situations. When tensions run high, and when people are emotional, they take any information you put up there for granted. Make sure that the information is correct.
TAKE SOCIAL MEDIA WITH A PINCH OF SALT
Using social media to support your reporting is not the same as an interview or representative of how a big group of people think or feel. Social media is often used to influence public debates by a select group of #HOBBYHATERS, be wary of that.
It is easy to solely blame the media for spreading polarised narratives. But without the reader, and without the consumer, media platforms would have little standing. The fact that media need to use outrage and sensation to engage their audiences, lays bare one of two major individual and social tendencies that incentivise every one of us to polarise. Unlike the other pillars of the MAPI-spiral, which point at polarising incentives of major institutions, this pillar showcases polarising tendencies on a much more personal level.
The first of these two tendencies is our urge to consume sensational stories that carry a lot of emotion. Through fiction, these natural tendencies can be quite easily nurtured, but once these urges move away from fiction into our actual society, we can end up in a place where we value the narratives in our mind above the factual information that might contradict them. Over time, this has often resulted in the rise of misconceptions regarding immigration, government spending and crime — especially as they keep being propelled by the media, politicians, and social media companies that are fighting over our attention spans.
As much as we can point towards the larger institutions for misusing our personal need for sensation, it is also our own responsibility to keep this incentive in check. For example, it is an established problem that media outlets use misleading headlines as clickbait for their articles, but it remains an individual’s decision to share the article without actually having read it themselves. As we keep ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ us-versus-them narratives on our social media accounts, we contribute just as much to the downward movement along the MAPI-spiral of polarisation.
“We value the narratives in our mind above the factual information that might contradict them.”
“These inclusive group identities often run the risk of becoming overly exclusive.”
The second tendency concerns our fundamental need to be part of a group. These groups can take all different kinds of forms. Locally, you can see it in sport clubs, families, fraternities, friend groups, or religious communities. But it also occurs on higher, more abstract levels like political parties, ideological alignments, and of course, nations. As different as these groups can be from one another, they have one thing in common: they are built on group identities. These identities start around a certain inclusive principle that dictates why individuals can be a part of it, be it a shared hobby, a shared family name, or a shared language.
However, these inclusive group identities often run the risk of becoming overly exclusive in their definition. After all, every in-group definition presupposes, either implicitly or explicitly, an out-group definition. On an individual level, these identities can be strongly internalised, often leading us to filter information based on how positively it aligns with our already established groups and beliefs. Whether we do so consciously or subconsciously, we often choose to accept information that reinforces our pre-established biases and disregard any that give us discomfort. This has been a big factor behind the success of fake news. It is therefore up to us, the audience, to check our biases and to question information that is given to us, before we start spreading it further.
FOR AUDIENCES TO PREVENT FURTHER ESCALATION:
LOOK BEYOND THE SENSATIONS OF THE DAY
If we only follow sensational news, we would develop a grim worldview for ourselves. For every report that causes a stir, there are over a hundred accomplishments that go unmentioned. This is important to remember before we start acting on dramatised perceptions of doom.
CONSIDER PAYING FOR QUALITY JOURNALISM
In every open society, the media play a crucial role in keeping other powers in check. However, we see that when they are forced to chase clickbait headlines, they might lose track of that responsibility. It is therefore important that members of the audience support forms of journalism that go beyond the hype of the day and take their time to conduct research on issues that do not necessarily fit into the usual us-versus-them narratives.
SPEAK OUT
Always speak out! Whether you firmly believe in something, have a nuanced opinion, or simply do not know what to think: the conversation must be held either way. And we need every voice for that to happen. This way, we ensure that the public debate is not just upheld by the extreme, polarising, black-and-white expressions, but also by all the different kinds of Grey in between.
STEP OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE
While social media makes it much easier to connect to the news, it also works to isolate us from other views. It is therefore important to step out of your bubble: engage in that conversation with your political opponent, follow the news that does not necessarily come from your preferred angle, and look for the things that other people are concerned about.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH
Be critical towards the tales that are told. In a time of filter bubbles and fake news the responsibility of truth finding is placed more and more on you: the consumer. Ask yourself critically if all the facts are out there and read different reports on certain events. Avoid mindlessly adopting the views of others and draw your own conclusions.
Politicians want to be elected and achieve their political goals, and as such, the biggest incentive for them to push for polarisation is electoral gains. Politicians tend to go through the media in order to reach their audience.
Due to the growing importance of the attention economy over the last decade, politicians are constantly battling for our attention. Political debates are now about getting as many outrageous one-liners in as possible, repeating them so they then get repeated in the media. The politician who actually take the time to explain their policy proposals, will usually lose out on media coverage to the politician who is providing sensation. They are not getting the room to discuss topics; rather, politics has become more of a popularity contest. Politicians even aim to convert this popularity to legitimacy. Doing so through sensational one-liners can lead to political parties becoming more radicalised, further feeding the downward path of the polarisation spiral.
Politicians are role models, whether they realise it or not. They can start trends and, in cases where they rely heavily on us-versus-them narratives, often legitimise radical behaviour. When polarisation kicks in, the attention economy and radical group thinking further stimulate a culture of hyper-partisanship in political parties. Because of this, loyalty to the political leaders becomes more important than party principles and scrutiny, further feeding the essential problem of polarisation in which our membership of a certain in-group is considered to be more important than the principles of an open, diverse society.
“When politicians rely heavily on us-versus-them narratives, they often legitimise radical behaviour.”
The old-style ‘trust me, I’m the expert’ argument has run its course. Policymakers are in dire need of a plan B. Luckily for them, this Plan B has already been written. Not by a think tank or a professor, but by a small movement of enthusiastic professionals in Bratislava, Slovakia.
FOR POLITICIANS TO PREVENT FURTHER ESCALATION:
THINK BEYOND ELECTORAL GAINS
Democracy entails more than just the rule of the majority. Emphasising differences is an intrinsic part of elections, but do this too often and you only create divisions instead of bridges. Politicians have a responsibility that goes beyond the winning of votes: unifying everyone in our society.
TRY TO UNIFY
Wherever people disagree, politicians should be at the vanguard of their consolidation. Politicians should not refrain from reaching out to others and making compromises. This is an essential pillar of our democratic society that keeps every individual involved and makes it possible for our society to move forward collectively.
SET THE TONE
Media hypes and opinion polls are important tools to know what is going on. However, focus on them too much and the politician risks occupying themselves more with sowing unrest than taking up leadership. Look beyond the hype of the day, set your own course and keep true to your ideals.
TRUST OTHERS
Complicated issues such as integration, health care, countering radicalisation and sustaining our civil society require specific measures. More frequently, the responsibility to handle these matters have been put in the hands of local professionals while genuine support has been lacking. Do not offer political one-liners, but put trust in their expertise and help them out where needed.
For a large part, we have covered the unique, new dimension of the internet, and social media in particular, in Defining Polarisation. Concerning the internet’s role in the MAPI-spiral, it mostly comes down to the fact that the companies that created the most popular social media platforms rely heavily on growing their user base , while also keeping them engaged for as long as possible.
Algorithms that favour us-versus-them narratives (which are closely related to sensationalism), echo chambers, and filter bubbles help social media platforms to achieve this goal. Social media has been designed to give the audience exactly what they want to see, to make sure that they keep coming back to see more. Whether the time consumers spend on social media is actually good for their own health, or constructive for the functioning of our society, will always be a secondary incentive for the commercial entities that run these platforms.
The number of active social media users worldwide in 2020 has passed 3.8 billion, compared to less than 1 billion users in 2010. 59% of the world’s population has internet access, with 87% of the developed world online. These vast statistics, along with the manifestations social media has enabled, such as echo chambers, selective exposure, filter bubbles and fake news, are the reason why the internet has developed to become one of the key actors in the downward spiral of polarisation.
“Social media has been designed to give the audience exactly what they want to see.”
FOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS TO PREVENT FURTHER ESCALATION:
WE NEED TRANSPARENT AND ETHICAL ALGORITHMS
It is clear that algorithms have an impact on how we consume news on social media, with potential filter bubbles as a consequence. We need more insights into the impact of these algorithms in order to build ethical algorithms that do not reward sensationalism.
CURB THE SPREAD OF DISINFORMATION
The unchecked spread of false information and conspiracy theories is damaging to our societies and is causing deeper polarisation. We need to stop disinformation from spreading online, while uplifting factual information. Fact checking is important, but we should also consider new rules for (political) advertisements and support new business models that secure a place for quality journalism on the internet.
REDUCE ONLINE HATE
Online hate is a great driver in polarisation, radicalisation and the formation of group thinking. We need new, and strictly enforced regulations in order to reduce online hate. Current rules are not clear enough, and allow for too much hate to be allowed on different social media platforms. Platforms should also invest in more moderators.
The MAPI-spiral illustrates the process of polarisation as a downward spiral that is propelled by the interactions between four crucial corners of our modern-day society: the Media, the Audience, Politics, and the Internet. Whilst the interaction between these four groups is crucial in maintaining an open, democratic, and diverse society, each of these groups have certain incentives that makes them promote and reward polarising behaviour.
Of course, there are many other actors and groups that influence our society, its democratic functioning, and its polarising nature. From universities to local neighbourhoods, and from NGOs to multinationals, they all have their own role to play. However, what makes the 4 actors of the MAPI-spiral stand out, is their specific role in spreading and legitimising polarising stories and, more fundamentally, us-versus-them narratives.
“Only by fully understanding the society-wide interplay of stories and narratives, can we make a difference.”
Our analysis only scratches the surface of many of the issues at play here. However, we consider the MAPI-spiral crucial in increasing society’s understanding of polarisation. Only by knowing why these actors act the way they do, and in understanding how certain actions can promote polarisation, can we come up with truly effective interventions.
Based on the MAPI-spiral and the observation that us-versus-them narratives are spread by actors whose actions heavily rely on their interaction with the rest of society, we at Dare to be Grey are convinced that successful interventions need to be created with a holistic approach. Interventions that only focus on the media, for example, should always be aware of their connection to other parts of society. Only by fully understanding the society-wide interplay of stories and narratives, can we make a difference.
This conviction is at the core of Dare to be Grey’s philosophy and unique working methods.
Written and edited by:
Hannah Richter
Jordy Nijenhuis
Edwin van de Scheur
