The bottom line in Mathew Ingram’s Columbia Journalism Review newsletter today is that we don’t fucking know the extent to which social networks like Facebook and Twitter have contributed to political polarization,[1] always a more honorable conclusion than an ill-founded assertion.
And before you jump, yes, he considers Jonathan Haidt. It’s just that the scholarly work is far from unanimous and a lot of it supports less strident conclusions.[2]
It’s important to note that extreme right-wing wingnuttery precedes the Internet and even right wing talk radio, such as my grandfather listened to, by centuries. Indeed, the origins of authoritarian populism lie in Great Britain a thousand years ago.[3] A moral panic over sexuality entailing a form of white replacement theory dates to the 19th century.[4] Just off the top of my head, additional examples include witch trials and burnings and the Scopes Monkey Trial.
To some degree, the question is whether social networks have increased right wingnuttery’s popularity. To some other degree, the question is whether social networks have simply enabled right wingnuts to better coordinate—hence the January 6 coup attempt—thus increasing the threat level even if not the popularity.
I’m not sure data even exists to answer these questions, but it’s also crucial not to confound them.
- [1]Mathew Ingram, “Have the dangers of social media been overstated?” Columbia Journalism Review, June 9, 2022, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/have-the-dangers-of-social-media-been-overstated.php↩
- [2]Mathew Ingram, “Have the dangers of social media been overstated?” Columbia Journalism Review, June 9, 2022, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/have-the-dangers-of-social-media-been-overstated.php↩
- [3]David Benfell, “Barack Obama asks, ‘Why is it that the folks that won the last election are so mad all the time?’ Not Housebroken, November 4, 2018, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/11/04/barack-obama-asks-why-is-it-that-the-folks-that-won-the-last-election-are-so-mad-all-the-time/↩
- [4]David Benfell, “The connection between ‘original sin,’ misogyny, and white supremacism,” Not Housebroken, November 25, 2018, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/11/25/the-connection-between-original-sin-misogyny-and-white-supremacism/↩