Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:31:12.823Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Affective Polarisation and Emotional Distortions on Social Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2022

Alessandra Tanesini
Alessandra Tanesini*
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I argue that social networking sites (SNSs) are emotion technologies that promote a highly charged emotional environment where intrinsic emotion regulation is significantly weakened, and people's emotions are more strongly modulated by other people and by the technology itself. I show that these features of social media promote a simplistic emotional outlook which is an obstacle to the development and maintenance of virtue. In addition, I focus on the mechanisms that promote group-based anger and thus give rise to affective polarisation. In the final section, after a discussion of the positive value of some forms of anger, I argue that SNSs should not be designed to prohibit or suppress anger, but that its encouragement should also be avoided. I conclude with a suggestion about how this might be achieved.

Type
Paper
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 92: Values and Virtues for a Challenging World , October 2022 , pp. 87 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alfano, M., Carter, J. A., & Cheong, M., ‘Technological Seduction and Self-Radicalization’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 4 (2018), 298–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvarez, R., Garcia, D., Moreno, Y., & Schweitzer, F., ‘Sentiment cascades in the 15M movement’, EPJ Data Science, 4 (2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amnesty International, ‘Amnesty reveals alarming impact of online abuse against women’ (2017, 20 November). Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/amnesty-reveals-alarming-impact-of-online-abuse-against-women/Google Scholar
Baym, N. K. & boyd, d, ‘Socially Mediated Publicness: An Introduction’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56 (2012), 320–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazarova, N. N., Choi, Y. H., Schwanda Sosik, V., Cosley, D. & Whitlock, J., ‘Social Sharing of Emotions on Facebook’, Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing - CSCW ’15, (Vancouver, BC, 2015).Google Scholar
Bejan, T. M., Mere civility: disagreement and the limits of toleration, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2017).Google Scholar
Bell, M., Hard Feelings: The Moral Psychology of Contempt, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
boyd, d., ‘Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implication’, In Papacharissi, Z. (Ed.), A networked self: identity, community and culture on social network sites (New York: Routledge, 2011) 39–58.Google Scholar
Bruder, M., Fischer, A. & Manstead, A. S. R., ‘Social appraisal as a cause of collective emotions’. In Scheve, C. v. & Salmella, M. (Eds.), Collective emotions: perspectives from psychology, philosophy, and sociology (OUP, 2014) 142–155.Google Scholar
Cherry, M., The Case for Rage: Why Anger Is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chmiel, A., Sienkiewicz, J., Thelwall, M., Paltoglou, G., Buckley, K., Kappas, A. & Holyst, J. A., ‘Collective emotions online and their influence on community life’, PLoS ONE, 6 (2011), e22207.Google ScholarPubMed
Colombetti, G. & Krueger, J., ‘Scaffoldings of the affective mind’ Philosophical Psychology, 28 (2015), 1157–1176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Arms, J. & Jacobsen, D., ‘The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ of Emotions’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 61 (2000), 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desmond, H., ‘Reclaiming Privacy and Care in the Age of Social Media’, Royal Institute Philosophy Supplementary Volume, 92 (2022) 45–66.Google Scholar
Duffy, B., Hewlett, K., Murkin, G., Benson, R., Hesketh, R., Page, B., Gottfried, G.,. ‘Culture wars’ in the UK (2021). Retrieved from https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/culture-wars-in-the-uk.pdfGoogle Scholar
Fan, R., Xu, K., & Zhao, J., ‘Weak ties strengthen anger contagion in social media’ (2020) arXiv:2005.01924 [cs.SI]. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.01924Google Scholar
Frost-Arnold, K., ‘The Epistemic Dangers of Context Collapse Online’. In Lackey, J. (Ed.), Applied epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021) 437–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, S.C., Conversational Pressure, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldenberg, A., Garcia, D., Halperin, E., & Gross, J. J., ‘Collective Emotions’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29 (2020), 154–160.Google Scholar
Gross, J. J., ‘Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects’, Psychological Inquiry, 26 (2015), 1–26.Google Scholar
Hannon, M., ‘Political Disagreement or Partisan Badmouthing? The Role of Expressive Discourse in Politics’. In Edenberg, E. & Hannon, M. (Eds.), Political Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) 306–329.Google Scholar
Jakobs, E., Manstead, A. S. R. & Fischer, A. H., ‘Social context effects on facial activity in a negative emotional setting’, Emotion, 1 (2001), 51–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, T. & Hollbach, S., ‘Group-based emotions as determinants of ingroup identification’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41 (2005), 677–685.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E. & Hancock, J. T., ‘Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111 (2014), 10779.Google ScholarPubMed
Krueger, J., ‘Emotions and the Social Niche’. In Scheve, C. v. & Salmella, M. (Eds.), Collective emotions: perspectives from psychology, philosophy, and sociology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 156–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, J., ‘Music as affective scaffolding’. In Herbert, R., Clarke, D., & Clarke, E. (Eds.), Music and Consciousness 2: Worlds, Practices, Modalities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) 55–70.Google Scholar
Krueger, J. & Osler, L., ‘Engineering affect: emotion regulation, the internet, and the techno-social niche’, Philosophical Topics, 47 (2019), 205–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lepoutre, M., ‘Rage inside the machine’, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 17 (2018), 398–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Livingstone, A. G., Spears, R., Manstead, A. S. R., Bruder, M. & Shepherd, L. ‘We feel, therefore we are: emotion as a basis for self-categorization and social action’. Emotion, 11 (2011), 754–767.Google ScholarPubMed
Löwe, I. v. d. & Parkinson, B., ‘Relational emotions and social networks’. In Scheve, C. v. & Salmella, M. (Eds.), Collective emotions: perspectives from psychology, philosophy, and sociology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 125–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, D. M., Maitner, A. T. & Smith, E. R., ‘Intergroup emotions theory’. In Nelson, T. D. (Ed.), Handbook of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination, 2nd ed. (New York: Psychology Press, 2016) 149–174.Google Scholar
Mackie, D. M., Silver, L. A. & Smith, E. R., ‘Intergroup Emotions: Emotion as an Intergroup Phenomenon’. In Tiedens, L. Z. & Leach, C. W. (Eds.), The social life of emotions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 227–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macnamara, C., ‘Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 90 (2015), 546–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, R. C. & Vieaux, L. E., ‘The Digital Rage: How Anger is Expressed Online’. In Riva, G., Wiederhold, B. K., & Cipresso, P. (Eds.), The psychology of social networking (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2015) 117–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, C. T., ‘How Twitter gamifies communication’. In Lackey, J. (Ed.), Applied Epistemology. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021) 410–436.Google Scholar
Papachrissi, Z., Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Pariser, E., The filter bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).Google Scholar
Parkinson, B., A. H. Fischer & A. S. R. Manstead, Emotion in Social Relations: Cultural, Group, and Interpersonal Processes, (New York and Hove: Psychology Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. (2017). Online Harassment. Retrieved from Washington, D.C.: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/07/11/online-harassment-2017/Google Scholar
Rimé, B., ‘Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review’, Emotion Review, 1 (2009), 60–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shackel, N., ‘Uncertainty Phobia and Epistemic Forbearance in a Pandemic’, Royal Institute Philosophy Supplementary Volume, 92 (2022) 271–91.Google Scholar
Song, Y. & Xu, R. ‘Affective Ties That Bind: Investigating the Affordances of Social Networking Sites for Commemoration of Traumatic Events’, Social Science Computer Review, 37 (2019), 333–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spears, R., ‘Group Identities: The Social Identity Perspective’. In Schwartz, S. J., Luyckx, K., & Vignoles, V. L. (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research, (New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 2011) 201–224.Google Scholar
Spears, R. & Postmes, T., ‘Group Identity, Social Influence, and Collective Action Online: Extensions and Applications of the SIDE Model’. In Sundar, S. S. (Ed.), The Handbook of the Psychology of Communication Technology (Malden and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2015) 23–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Srinivasan, A., ‘The Aptness of Anger’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 26 (2018), 123–144.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K., ‘Minds: extended or scaffolded?’ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9 (2010), 465–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sumner, E. M., Ruge-Jones, L. & Alcorn, D., ‘A functional approach to the Facebook Like button: An exploration of meaning, interpersonal functionality, and potential alternative response buttons’, New Media & Society, 20 (2017), 1451–1469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talisse, R. B., ‘The Problem of Polarization’. In Overdoing Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019) 95–128.Google Scholar
Tufekci, Z., Twitter and tear gas: the power and fragility of networked protest, (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2017).Google Scholar
Vaidhyanathan, S., Antisocial media: how facebook disconnects US and undermines democracy, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).Google Scholar
Vallor, S., Technologies and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
van Zomeren, M., Spears, R., Fischer, A. H. & Leach, C. W., ‘Put your money where your mouth is! Explaining collective action tendencies through group-based anger and group efficacy’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87 (2004), 649–664.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waterloo, S. F., Baumgartner, S. E., Peter, J. & Valkenburg, P. M., ‘Norms of online expressions of emotion: Comparing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp’. New Media & Society, 20 (2018), 1813–1831.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whitwam, R., ‘Whistleblower: Facebook Is Designed to Make You Angry’ (2021). Retrieved from https://www.extremetech.com/internet/327855-whistleblower-facebook-is-designed-to-make-you-angryGoogle Scholar
Wollebæk, D., Karlsen, R., Steen-Johnsen, K. & Enjolras, B., ‘Anger, Fear, and Echo Chambers: The Emotional Basis for Online Behavior’, Social Media + Society, 5 (2019), 1–14.Google Scholar
Ziegele, M. & Reinecke, L., ‘No place for negative emotions? The effects of message valence, communication channel, and social distance on users’ willingness to respond to SNS status updates’. Computers in Human Behavior, 75 (2017) 704–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zollo, F., Novak, P. K., Del Vicario, M., Bessi, A., Mozetic, I., Scala, A., Quattrociocchi, W., ‘Emotional Dynamics in the Age of Misinformation’, PLoS ONE, 10 (2015), e0138740.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed