Rethinking polarization: Discursive opening and the possibility for sustaining dialogue

ABSTRACT Increased polarization and divisive political speech threaten meaningful civic discussion. This study examines a campus public dialogue to understand how dialogic commitments sustained discursive openings for talking across polarizing positions. Specifically, our analysis identifies three patterns of interaction that constituted sustained openings: conceptual expansion, deliberation of meaning, and dialogic moments. Additionally, we contend two communicative practices extended dialogic commitments: discursive vulnerability and critical reflexivity. Finally, we draw on structuration theory to explain how participants disrupted polarizing political tropes to instead enact rules and resources associated with dialogue. Our analysis asserts a rethinking of polarization as communicative – that is, an enactment of dominant political discourses – and elucidates how students with limited instruction instead sought mutual understanding and authentic engagement.