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SUMMARY:Why social media are polarizing politics
DTSTART:20230525T101500
DTEND:20230525T111500
DTSTAMP:20260504T082309Z
UID:36ca2552c0103eb9330b6326b2ca9a8b1c966ac0f00b6ba9fb968e5d
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Petter Törnberg\nPolitics around the world has entered an er
 a of unprecedented political polarization\, and scholars point to social 
 media as playing a key role. The so-called “echo chamber” hypothesis 
 suggests that digital media enable self-segregation into clusters with l
 ike-minded others – making us more extreme through a feedback loop betwe
 en isolation and extremism. While this idea remains at the core of soc
 ial media polarization research\, it has been questioned by empirical ev
 idence finding ample interaction across the political divide. This pres
 entation will suggest a new understanding of the link between social media
  and polarization. We go inside a far-right echo chamber to understand h
 ow individuals are affected by engaging with extremist communities\, exa
 mining 20 years of conversations on the white power forum Stormfront. We 
 then examine the interaction across the political divide on Twitter. Th
 e findings point to a new way of understanding and studying digital medi
 a polarization: these media drive polarization not by isolating us in ech
 o chambers\, but by encouraging the formation of political identities 
 – thus trivializing politics. This suggests that conflict\, not isolat
 ion\, lies at the core of social media polarization.\n\nPetter Törnberg
  is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Language\, Logic and Computa
 tion at the University of Amsterdam\, an NWO VENI laurate\, and a senior
  researcher at the University of Neuchâtel. His research focuses on the
  intersection of AI\, social media\, and politics\, using digital data and
  computational methods for critical research that contributes to social 
 scientific theory. His recent publications are featured in journals s
 uch as PNAS\, New Media & Society\, and Big Data & Society.\n 
LOCATION:BC 129 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BC%20129
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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