Controversies, Problematic Information, and Polarisation: Case Studies Across Six Continents

Political trends around the world have drawn further scholarly attention to the study of polarisation, especially also as it is expressed and potentially deepened by public communication on digital and social media platforms. The very concept of polarisation itself, however, remains ill-defined especially in communication research, where it is often used as a mere buzzword without sufficient definition – even in spite of a wide range of conceptual approaches that variously emphasise issue-centric, ideological, affective, interpretive, interactional, or other facets of polarisation (Marino & Ianelli, 2023; Esau et al., 2023). Issue-centric approaches to the study of polarisation often connect it with specific controversies, and therefore align well with controversy mapping and related methodological frameworks. Especially where they study such controversies in digital and social media contexts, they also point to the significant intersections between the circulation of problematic information by and the deepening of polarisation between partisan actors, as well as to the often asymmetrical nature of such contestations (where groups on one side of a given controversy are substantially more likely to use problematic information to support their cause than the groups opposing them; Kreiss & McGregor, 2023). Unfortunately, much of the recent research in this field has continued to focus on a small number of key political contexts, with emphasis especially on the US and UK. This panel reviews evidence on the intersection of controversies, problematic information, and polarisation through a series of case studies from six continents: North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. In combination, these studies present a substantially more comprehensive picture of global similarities and local differences. Paper 1 explores the polarising impact of disinformation campaigns in favour of incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 Brasilian presidential election. It reveals a potentially unusual bottom-up disinformation pattern that produces a reverse influence flow from grassroots activists to political leaders and complicates standard distinctions between mis- and disinformation; this also creates new challenges for fact-checking efforts. Paper 2 examines the dynamics of Italian public opinion in response to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions in early 2020. Drawing on longitudinal survey data, it identifies a range of perspectives from extreme communitarian to extreme libertarian, and connects this to patterns of legacy and social media use, attitudes towards political institutions, and levels of exposure to mis- and disinformation. Paper 3 compares the divergent dynamics of political debates on Indigenous rights in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. In the campaigning leading up to Australia’s 2023 referendum on greater Indigenous recognition and representation, it identifies a highly asymmetrical contest that flipped public opinion from strong support for Indigenous recognition to a 60% No vote within less than one year. In the heated political debate about Māori rights in Aotearoa New Zealand since the 2023 election of a new, conservative coalition government, it identifies continuing Māori/non-Māori solidarity in resistance to the reduction of rights stemming from the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Paper 4 investigates the debates on Twitter about measures to combat sexual violence in Indonesia that came into effect in 2021 and 2022. Drawing on extensive content and network analysis, the study shows that, diverging from the #metoo-style activism against sexual discrimination, harassment, and violence that is common in Western contexts, in Indonesia this agenda is interpreted predominantly through the lens of an underlying polarisation between secular nationalist and Islamist political groupings in the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy. Paper 5 compares the online dynamics of the abortion debate in the US before and after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, focussing especially on political candidates’ social media messaging on abortion rights. Analysis of Democrats’ and Republicans’ posts about the issue, and of broader Twitter and Facebook user engagement with the issue, is expected to point to substantial differences between the parties, timeframes, and platforms. In combination, these five papers cover a rich selection of case studies on the intersections between controversies, problematic information, and polarisation around the world. Extended abstracts for all five papers are included in the submission.