The Quality of Connections: Deliberative Reciprocity and Inclusive Listening as Antidote to Destructive Polarization Online

IF 5.5 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2025-04-20 DOI:10.1177/20563051251332421

Katharina Esau

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Conflict and disagreement are integral to healthy democracies, but the extreme polarization observed on many social media platforms poses a serious risk to the core functions of public communication. This theoretical article draws on the concept of connective democracy, further theorizing it to bridge the gap between empirical online deliberation and polarization research. It introduces and refines the concept of destructive polarization and its symptoms—manifested in user-generated content on social media platforms—and applies connective democracy theory to examine these symptoms’ underlying causes. The framework shifts from the dominant focus on the quality of individual communication acts to a focus on the quality of connections, particularly within dyadic communication. Through this relational perspective, the article explores how reciprocity and listening can serve as remedies to destructive polarization, fostering high-quality connections between citizens online. Reciprocity and listening are discussed as communicative mechanisms that should be nurtured as part of depolarization strategies. Finally, the article offers insights into what platform providers and community managers can learn from this theoretical exercise to promote democratic discourse online.

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连接的质量：审慎互惠和包容性倾听作为在线破坏性两极分化的解毒剂

冲突和分歧是健康民主不可或缺的一部分，但在许多社交媒体平台上观察到的极端两极分化对公共沟通的核心功能构成了严重风险。这篇理论文章借鉴了关联民主的概念，进一步将其理论化，以弥合实证网络审议与两极分化研究之间的差距。它引入并完善了破坏性两极分化的概念及其症状——表现在社交媒体平台上的用户生成内容上——并应用关联民主理论来研究这些症状的潜在原因。该框架从对个体沟通行为质量的主要关注转变为对连接质量的关注，特别是在二元沟通中。通过这种关系的视角，本文探讨了互惠和倾听如何作为破坏性两极分化的补救措施，促进公民之间的高质量在线联系。互惠和倾听作为交际机制，应该作为去极化策略的一部分加以培养。最后，本文提供了平台提供者和社区管理者可以从这一理论实践中学习到的见解，以促进在线民主话语。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.