How Social Media Divides Us

There are grow­ing con­cerns about how social media divides us.

As it becomes easi­er for every­one to self-pub­lish without cen­sor­ship, we also see the rise of anonym­ous hate, fraud­u­lent beha­viour, online trolls, rampant pop­u­lism, and propaganda. 

And then there’s the techlash. 

Oh, and haven’t you heard? Social media is killing journ­al­ism and cul­ture, too.

Can the gen­er­al pub­lic be trus­ted to wield such powers if the inter­net is truly migh­ti­er than the sword? 

Here we go:

Social Media Divides Us Academically

Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974) was an American writer, polit­ic­al com­ment­at­or, and colum­nist. His leg­acy still lingers, as he coined con­cepts like “the Cold War” and words like “ste­reo­type.” His most not­able pub­lic­a­tion, Public Opinion (1922), is still note­worthy for pub­lic rela­tions professionals.

Walter Lippmann and Perception Management

In his sem­in­al work Public Opinion (1922), Walter Lippmann laid the intel­lec­tu­al ground­work for the idea that per­cep­tion and real­ity are not the same — a core prin­ciple of mod­ern per­cep­tion man­age­ment. ¹Lippmann, Walter. 1960. Public Opinion (1922). New York: Macmillan.

Lippmann argued that:

Lippmann’s ideas res­on­ate deeply with per­cep­tion man­age­ment in pub­lic relations.

“We are all cap­tives of the pic­ture in our head — our belief that the world we have exper­i­enced is the world that really exists.”
— Walter Lippmann (1889 – 1974)

On Creating Pseudo-Environments

Lippmann coined the term “pseudo-envir­on­ment,” which describes the filtered, biased, and often arti­fi­cial ver­sion of real­ity presen­ted by the media. He warned that influ­en­tial elites could exploit this man­u­fac­tured real­ity to manip­u­late pub­lic thought and behaviour.

Lippmann was scep­tic­al about the public’s abil­ity to dis­cern real­ity from the pseudo-envir­on­ment, which raises eth­ic­al concerns:

Perception man­age­ment is not inher­ently sin­is­ter, but as Lippmann warned, it places immense power in the hands of those con­trolling the narrative. 

In essence, per­cep­tion man­age­ment is the applied PR ver­sion of Lippmann’s media cri­tique. It acknow­ledges that facts alone do not win pub­lic trust—prim­ing, fram­ing, storytelling, and emo­tion­al appeal do.

Learn more: Perception Management

Lippmann, the win­ner of two Pulitzer prizes, engaged in heated pub­lic debates with John Dewey (1859−1952), an American philo­soph­er and psy­cho­lo­gist of spe­cif­ic interest in pub­lic rela­tions. His per­spect­ive of human inter­ac­tion gave rise to seg­ment­ing people in pub­lics (the “P” in pub­lic rela­tions). ²The Lippmann-Dewey debate was an intel­lec­tu­al battle con­cern­ing the role of journ­al­ism. Can the gen­er­al pub­lic com­pre­hend the value of ser­i­ous report­ing, or will they opt for enter­tain­ment instead?

Dewey cri­tiqued Lippmann’s “elit­ist views”, while Lippmann emphas­ised the import­ance of journ­al­ism; the pub­lic can­not make sense of the world without object­ive report­ing and expert insights. 

Edward Bernays (1891−1995) argued that mass media was a pro­pa­ganda tool for the elites, the fath­er of pub­lic relations. 

Another influ­en­tial PR prac­ti­tion­er, Ivy Lee (187−1934), who, amongst oth­er accom­plish­ments, cre­ated the first press release and influ­enced the field of crisis com­mu­nic­a­tions, seemed to have much more faith in human­ity’s capa­city for under­stand­ing the world.

On Lippmann’s side of things, we see crit­ic­al minds like Noam Chomsky dis­cuss­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing of con­sent, and on Dewey’s side, we find minds like Clay Shirky dis­cuss­ing, here comes every­body. While Chomsky would argue that our media is primar­ily a tool for the élite to shape our minds, Shirky would likely say that we as indi­vidu­als have abso­lute power (“there’s no inform­a­tion over­load, only fil­ter failure”).

Neil Postman (1931−2003) warned us about amus­ing ourselves to death, while Marshall McLuhan (1911−1980) demoted the import­ance of spe­cif­ic con­tent by stat­ing that the medi­um is the mes­sage.

From a found­a­tion­al stand­point, there are reas­on­able argu­ments from both sides of the spectrum.

Social Media Divides Us Individually

Today, those who believe in the power of social media will argue that every­one’s a pub­lish­er with a power­ful voice and that social graphs are rede­fin­ing how we relate to each oth­er. They are social media optim­ists about how the media land­scape is chan­ging, and they typ­ic­ally believe that we’re simply in the pro­cess of learn­ing how to man­age the digit­al media landscape.

Social media optim­ists will argue that if there’s a prob­lem with how humans behave, we should embrace the fact that tech­no­logy brings these beha­viours out in the open. Only then can we learn, as a soci­ety, how to deal with such ser­i­ous issues.

Then, we have social media pess­im­ists who will argue that social media is a breed­ing ground for fake news, pop­u­lism, and the sub­sequent death of one of the essen­tial pil­lars of demo­cracy — journ­al­ism. They’re also the driv­ing force behind the tech­lash, ser­i­ously cri­tiquing the tech giants.

“The wis­dom of crowds” is beau­ti­ful, but is it also naïve? Wikipedia is a remark­able achieve­ment and could­n’t exist without its com­munity of volun­teers. WordPress powers 26% of the web and runs on open-source con­tri­bu­tions from pro­gram­mers worldwide.

Still, pess­im­ists don’t feel that whatever good social media is doing is enough to make up for mak­ing us addicted to smart­phones and pro­mot­ing fur­ther polarization.

Social Media Divides Us Algorithmically 

In the wake of the recent US elec­tion, where President Donald Trump won the pop­u­list voters, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has been heav­ily cri­ti­cised for aid­ing and abet­ting the dis­sem­in­a­tion of peak populism. 

Facebook and most oth­er social media plat­forms are being heav­ily cri­ti­cised for cre­at­ing fil­ter bubbles where like-minded people amp­li­fy their delu­sions by social rein­force­ment — instead of listen­ing to well-edu­cated experts on rel­ev­ant sub­ject matters. 

The Cambridge Analytica scan­dal did­n’t pre­cisely strengthen Facebook’s case.

Governments and insti­tu­tions are going after the tech giants world­wide, but are their goals altru­ist­ic? Or are our gov­ern­ments try­ing to get their hands on our data themselves?

With pro­found advance­ments in nar­row arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, social scor­ing sys­tems and facial recog­ni­tion, there’s a case to be made that it’s bet­ter to see innov­a­tion driv­en by com­pan­ies that run ads rather than insti­tu­tions that mono­pol­ise violence.

Still, put­ting the macro power bal­ance aside, there’s the press­ing under­ly­ing issue of social media algorithms pro­mot­ing media logic mech­an­isms, i.e. polar­isa­tion, sim­pli­fic­a­tion, per­son­al­isa­tion, and visualisation.

Either way, there’s an appar­ent risk that power­ful agents like states and tech giants are tak­ing advant­age of adverse side effects to push for more power and incred­ible wealth — at the expense of us social media users.

Social Media Divides Us Politically

The con­flict between news pub­lish­ers and tech giants fight­ing for a share of voice and ad rev­en­ue isn’t made bet­ter. This con­flict often forces news pub­lish­ers to side with the state’s agenda, not the people’s. 

Still, our social media usage is deeply ingrained in our com­mu­nic­at­ive beha­viour. Companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (FAANG) are already influ­en­cing our media con­sump­tion at an unpre­ced­en­ted level. 

Consequently, journ­al­ists and tra­di­tion­al news pub­lish­ers, the former cham­pi­ons of free speech and free­dom from cen­sor­ship, are push­ing tech giants like Facebook to take respons­ib­il­ity for how we, the social media users, lever­age the free­dom of speech.

Still, we must ask ourselves if we want the FAANG com­pan­ies to act­ively use their algorithms to shape our worldview.

A sig­ni­fic­ant issue is that today’s polit­ic­al land­scape is driv­en by its flanks. On the one side, we have alt-right nation­al­ists and pop­u­lists, and on the oth­er, we have alt-left social justice war­ri­ors. While far apart polit­ic­ally, they’re both heav­ily reli­ant on iden­tity polit­ics, cent­ral­ised power, and intol­er­ance of dif­fer­ing opinions.

Both flanks see aggres­sion and viol­ence as reas­on­able polit­ic­al meth­ods, highly favoured expres­sions amp­li­fied by social media algorithms.

So, no mat­ter if Mark Zuckerberg were to take the stance of being a social media optim­ist or a social media pess­im­ist, he would­n’t know which leg to stand on:

If the tech giants leave the social algorithms unchecked, they fuel the flanks.
They fuel the flanks if they manip­u­late the algorithms to sta­bil­ise human behaviour.

And doing noth­ing accel­er­ates the spir­al of silence.

How To Stop Social Media From Dividing Us

As the recent debate on how social media is respons­ible for spread­ing fake news and altern­at­ive facts stirs emo­tions, many raise their voices for stricter reg­u­la­tion and increased con­trol. We mustn’t social­ise ourselves to death, it seems.

Neil Postman warned us about the dangers of media logic and the risk of “amus­ing ourselves to death”.

While tele­vi­sion indeed changed the fab­ric of our soci­ety for both bet­ter and worse, we must ask ourselves if we believe that state-con­trolled tele­vi­sion used to con­trol our world­views and emo­tion­al states would have been prefer­able. Or if it’s even pos­sible to stop inform­a­tion tech­no­logy from chan­ging our lives?

As social media users, we must be care­ful about our wishes. 

The ques­tion of how social media divides us is com­plex, so what kind of change should we demand from those in power?

We should lobby for…

PR Resource: Social Media Logic

Enter: Social Media Logic

Media logic is a set of the­or­ies describ­ing how the medi­um affects the media. Typically, the format (as the medi­um dic­tates) influ­ences the medi­ated message.

“Media logic is defined as a form of com­mu­nic­a­tion, and the pro­cess through which media trans­mit and com­mu­nic­ate inform­a­tion. The logic and guidelines become taken for gran­ted, often insti­tu­tion­al­ized, and inform social inter­ac­tion. A basic prin­ciple is that media, inform­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies, and com­mu­nic­a­tion formats can affect events and social activ­it­ies.“
Source: The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication ³Altheide, D. L. (2016). Media Logic. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, 1 – 6. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​9​7​8​1​1​1​8​5​4​1​5​5​5​.​w​b​i​e​p​c​088

As fam­ously stip­u­lated by Marshall McLuhan, “The medi­um is the mes­sage.” What are the typ­ic­al effects of media logic on medi­ated messages?

Classic Media Logic Effects

Classic media logic is hypo­thes­ised to influ­ence the news media in the fol­low­ing ways: ⁴Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. … Continue read­ing

The effects of the above media logic can also be recog­nised in social media. Still, social net­work algorithms seem to add even more effects:

Social Media Logic Effects

“Social media logic, rooted in pro­gram­mab­il­ity, pop­ular­ity, con­nectiv­ity, and datafic­a­tion, is increas­ingly entangled with mass media logic, impact­ing vari­ous areas of pub­lic life.”
Source: Writing Technologies eJournal ⁵Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding Social Media Logic. Writing Technologies eJournal. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​6​4​5​/​M​A​C​.​V​1​I​1​.70

Based on the sug­ges­ted addi­tions for social plat­forms, we can add four extra dimen­sions to the clas­sic media logic effects model:

Social media logic seems entangled with clas­sic media logic. While more com­plex, social net­works seem to amp­li­fy the effects of clas­sic media logic.

Learn more: Social Media Logic

PR Resource: The Amplification Hypothesis

The Amplification Hypothesis

It’s com­mon to find that coun­ter­ar­gu­ments strengthen exist­ing beliefs instead of weak­en­ing them. 

The harder you attack someone verbally, the more you con­vince them of their belief, not yours.

The phe­nomen­on is known as the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is, where dis­play­ing cer­tainty about an atti­tude when talk­ing with anoth­er per­son increases and hardens that attitude.

“Across exper­i­ments, it is demon­strated that increas­ing atti­tude cer­tainty strengthens atti­tudes (e.g., increases their res­ist­ance to per­sua­sion) when atti­tudes are uni­valent but weak­ens atti­tudes (e.g., decreases their res­ist­ance to per­sua­sion) when atti­tudes are ambi­val­ent. These res­ults are con­sist­ent with the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is.“
Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ⁶Clarkson, J. J., Tormala, Z. L., & Rucker, D. D. (2008). A new look at the con­sequences of atti­tude cer­tainty: The amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, … Continue read­ing

How does the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is work? 

In a threat­en­ing situ­ation or emer­gency, we resort to the prim­al (fast­est) part of the brain and sur­viv­al instincts (fight, flight and freeze). ⁷Surviving the Storm: Understanding the Nature of Attacks held at Animal Care Expo, 2011 in Orlando, FL.

Establishing com­mon ground and exhib­it­ing empathy demon­strates a genu­ine under­stand­ing of their per­spect­ive, fos­ter­ing trust and open­ness to your ideas. Conversely, a stra­tegic mis­match of atti­tudes can serve as a power­ful coun­ter­meas­ure if your object­ive is to deflect per­suas­ive attempts.

Persuade

To per­suade, align your atti­tude with the tar­get. Otherwise, you will only act to cre­ate resistance.

Provoke

To put off a per­suader, mis­match their atti­tudes. When they are logic­al, be emo­tion­al, and vice versa. 

Learn more: The Amplification Hypothesis: How To Counter Extreme Positions

PR Resource: Spiral of Silence

The Spiral of Silence Theory

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s (1916 – 2010) well-doc­u­mented the­ory on the spir­al of silence (1974) explains why the fear of isol­a­tion due to peer exclu­sion will pres­sure pub­lics to silence their opinions.

The the­ory was developed in the late 1970s in West Germany, partly in response to Noelle-Neumann’s obser­va­tions of how pub­lic opin­ion seemed to shift dur­ing the Nazi régime and post-war Germany.

The spir­al of silence the­ory is based on the idea that people fear social isol­a­tion. This fear influ­ences their will­ing­ness to express their opin­ions, espe­cially if they believe these opin­ions are in the minority.

Rather than risk­ing social isol­a­tion, many choose silence over express­ing their opinions.

As the dom­in­ant coali­tion stands unop­posed, they push the con­fines of what’s accept­able down a nar­row­er and nar­row­er fun­nel, the so-called opin­ion cor­ridor). ¹¹Opinion cor­ridor. (2023, April 8). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​O​p​i​n​i​o​n​_​c​o​r​r​i​dor

Noelle-Neumann emphas­ised the medi­a’s role in shap­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion of what opin­ions are dom­in­ant or pop­u­lar, thus influ­en­cing the spir­al of silence. 

Populism and Cancel Culture

The mech­an­isms behind Elisabeth Noelle Neumann’s spir­al of silence the­ory could fuel destruct­ive soci­et­al phe­nom­ena like pop­u­lism and can­cel culture:

In both cases, the spir­al of silence con­trib­utes to a polar­ised envir­on­ment. Views become dom­in­ant not neces­sar­ily because they are more pop­u­lar but because oppos­ing views are not expressed due to fear of social isol­a­tion or repercussions.

Learn more: The Spiral of Silence