The Dangerous Echo of Polarized Voices

Emily Page (00:00):

On a Sunday morning in January, 1972, ordinary men and women marched through the streets of dairy Northern Ireland. They carried banners, they carried hope. They believed their voices could change the future.

Doug Downs (00:18):

It was January 30th, 1972. Cold. Damp. The kind today when breath shows in the air and tempers linger just under the surface. The marchers came for civil rights, housing, jobs, fair treatment from the government. They came with chance with songs, with the belief that peaceful protests would be heard louder than violence, and then soldiers lined the streets armed men in uniforms already suspicious, already primed by months of political leaders calling these citizens agitators and troublemakers. And then a rock was thrown. The words became shouts, and the shouts became panic. The soldiers opened fire. 17 minutes later, 26 people lay on the ground. 14 would never stand again. The world called it Bloody Sunday. The band U2 would later sing, how long must we Sing this song? But long before the music, the message was clear. Rhetoric and labels have primed the tragedy because violence rarely begins with a bullet. It begins with words that divide, with messages that dehumanize with communication that turns neighbor against neighbor. Today on stories and strategies, how communication can lead to violence. Because in politics, unlike rock and roll, sometimes the words hit harder than the drums.

(02:08):

My name is Doug Downs,

Farzana Baduel (02:10):

And my name is FNA Badel. Our guest this week is Amy Pate, joining today for Maryland. Hi Amy.

Amy Pate (02:18):

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Farzana Baduel (02:20):

How are things in beautiful Maryland?

Amy Pate (02:24):

They're beautiful. We're getting a nice little streak of warm weather.

Farzana Baduel (02:28):

Wonderful. Now, Amy, you are the executive director at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. You've spent your career studying extremism and political violence focusing on how communication and ideology can push people toward radicalization. You also advise policymakers and communities around the world on how to prevent violence and build resilience.

Doug Downs (02:58):

And sadly, we've been kind of seeing some examples of this of late. So Amy, real simple. What role does communication play in turning political polarization, which is not just in the us, that's in the uk, that's in Canada. I know that into acts of violence.

Amy Pate (03:17):

So first, let's talk a little bit about what type of polarization. So you can talk about polarization in the sense of political distance between viewpoints. And there are indications that at the extremes that distance has been increasing, which suggests that there may be for some people less room for compromise just because they're too far apart on issues. And that can be problematic. But that's not actually the type of polarization that most concerns me from my point of view. It's more the identity based polarization, which political distance policy differences can feed into. But that is the type of polarization I think that is really fed by certain communication strategies.

(04:17):

So language that centralizes people based on their points of view as the other. For example, dehumanizing language, monolithic language. So all people who believe this way are, they're bad, they're evil, they're extremists, they're violent, even if they're not violent. That type of essentializing rhetoric, it meshes people in their political identities and makes them more vulnerable to message that then justify violence towards that other. We've seen this in all types of violence. That dehumanization of the other is a critical step, and that is usually carried out through a variety of communication strategies by a variety of actors. Like it happened in Nazi Germany, it happened in Rwanda before the genocide, and it happens in a lot of modern political discourse as well.

Farzana Baduel (05:32):

Now, Amy, we are obviously all aware of the unrest that is happening in our society, in our communities, but there is something a little bit different about the world that we live in compared to those of our grandparents. So for instance, here's my phone and all the social media. So how does social media play a role? Because since human history has been recorded, conflict is rife in all of the stories passed on through the ages. But tell us about social media. What unique role does it play for us?

Amy Pate (06:11):

So what social media does, and specifically the algorithms behind social media that give you more suggestions about what else to look at,

(06:22):

Is it means people are living in totally different information ecosystems, and that creates very different perceptions on what reality looks like. So if you think back, even when I was a kid in the eighties in the United States, the fairness doctrine was still in play. If you looked at the difference between the nightly news on A B, CC, B-S-N-B-C, which everyone watched one of those, usually there were differences, but there weren't a lot of differences. They were largely presenting the same reality. And so the country and communities had a shared set of facts that they were working from. So we initially started to see some spice and polarization actually with the end of the fairness doctrine and the rise of talk radio and the growth of the 24 7 news cycle with cable news networks and social media has just accelerated that, right? Because again, like you said, here's my phone always never more than two feet away from me.

(07:40):

We use these phones for so much, and so people are enmeshed and this messaging and it's also not in real life. So before, because there's also been geographic sorting to a degree in this country, people would watch the news and they may have disagreements, but they would be mostly talking to each other face to face. And that tempered usually tempers what you say, the keyboard warriors, half of what they type in response to social media posts or in comment sections of online newspapers or in emails. We've gotten some quite vulgar emails at start over the last few days. They would never say those things to a person's face. And so then on both sides, the only view that people really see of each other, it's like, it's not our better angels. Social media does not bring out our better angels. Many times politicians looking to capitalize on polarization, right? Because if they can mesh voters in an identity where it's not about the policies anymore, and they can energize a very devoted base because of that identity, it's easier for them to get reelected.

Doug Downs (09:19):

I remember those days when we watched Peter Jennings or Dan Rather, or Tom Brokaw, right? Which is what you referenced off the top. There's a problem with that. Three middle aged or older white dudes were our influencers, if you will. And what we've brought in the modern age is diversity. And if I don't like what the mainstream or lame stream media is peddling out there now, there are channels for others to build their own channels. I think that's actually better. And I don't know if the old world was necessarily, we hadn an agreed set of facts, or maybe these are the facts that this tiny group of society wanted to share. And now we're learning some things that maybe we didn't talk about before. But tell me about the role of influencers. And under that umbrella, I'm actually fitting politicians, presidents, and major party leaders. Do they stoke the fires sometimes and what role do they play?

Amy Pate (10:20):

Yeah, so I think there are a couple of ways that this happens in reasons that this happens. First, when you're talking about content creators, influencers, and this includes politicians. Now that there is a 24 7 cycle, a lot of times there's a rush to conclusions because they have to fill the silence

Doug Downs (10:42):

So fast.

Amy Pate (10:44):

They to want to react so fast, their audiences expect people immediate information. And so there's a rush to conclusions. And usually that rush to conclusions is fed by their individual biases or beliefs as opposed to any sort of evidence. So literally 20 minutes or so with the news broke, the video started circulating people who were on the right immediately were like, it's a leftist.

Doug Downs (11:20):

The Charlie Kirk shooting?

Amy Pate (11:21):

Yeah,

Doug Downs (11:21):

Yeah,

Amy Pate (11:22):

The Charlie Cook. Kirk was shot by a leftist. It has to be a leftist. Those that were more left-leaning immediately said, it's a Nick Fuentes follower. It's a griper, right? Because there's this feud between there'd been this feud between the two of them.

Doug Downs (11:38):

Got it.

Amy Pate (11:39):

When very bad things like this happen, a lot of times there's a rush on each side of the aisle to distance disassociate. That's not one of ours. And then you start getting the conspiracy theories by Wednesday afternoon, I'd seen conspiracy theories that Israel was behind it, that it was a false flag attack and that it was within the Trump administration that a trans terrorist group had groomed him that the shooter was a trans activist. None of those things seem to be accurate. Those all seem to be conspiracy theories that are trying to tie into certain memes or beliefs that are widespread right now within our society. As information continues to come out, it's definitely targeted violence, but if any political ideologies behind it, it's more knee list.

(12:47):

He was trolling with a gun. When you look at, it seems like his main influence of his being enmeshed in online video games. And this is a category that's very unsatisfying to influencers on the right and the left. Another way people grab onto facts to fit their narratives, the preconceived narratives is the Bella Bella Chao on the one bullet on the right. They're like, oh, that's an anti-fascist song from 1960s Italy. People on the left were like, oh, that's on our griper Nick Fuentes Spotify playlist. But really it's a song that is very popular that's used in quite a few online video games and given the other stuff, it's like that's probably where it came from. Video game.

Farzana Baduel (13:43):

Gosh, Amy, it's such a sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in because of these echo chambers that are wrapped around like a bubble around our brain, this sort of social media. And it sort of really hardens our conviction into what we think is the truth. And it's incredibly reductive from when you think about the way that our brain shuts down that sense of openness to other views. And just from a cognitive perspective, policies for societies have always helped. Human progress has been from that sense of openness, that sense of being able to look around and see what this person thinks that person thinks, and that diversity of thought that leads to a really strong informed policy. And I wanted to ask from a prevention standpoint, what types of communication strategies or public messaging has the best chance of cooling tensions?

Amy Pate (14:49):

So I think there both sort of short-term messaging strategies, but also long-term communication policies that can help in these situations. I actually think for the most part, the governor of Utah has done a pretty good job of trying to cool tension. It's been very clear. One guy did this, has asked the community, what are we doing? What's happening here? We need to get ourselves straight here. So I think he's done actually a pretty good job of trying to cool tensions, trying not necessarily to rush quite so quickly to conclusions. I feel like also his rhetoric has been drowned out by rhetoric, by the administration, but also by higher profile, right wing influencers, people like Laura Luer, so Utah's governor. It's an uphill battle for those to work. But I think the more people say humanize each other, not a fan of Charlie Kirk. I have friends who are on his professor watch list.

(16:12):

Nobody, nothing like that should have ever happened to him, right? It's terrible. It's hugely traumatizing to his friends and family, traumatizing to everyone who was in that crowd. And now we're getting, because of social media, the rapidity with which that very graphic video circulating, it's traumatizing. And sometimes trauma can open people up to radicalization. So that's just more and more the more people can say, Hey, this is not okay. This one kid made this decision. That's also a tragedy for him and his family. His roommate has now been, ends up being thrust into the spotlight.

(17:06):

People with big microphones, but I also think it's people with little microphones. I had a conversation in my class about this and urge my students not to rush to conclusions, not to watch the video, if they could avoid it, to step away from their social media to go touch grass. I think a lot of times as individuals, we can underestimate the type of influence we can have within our own social circles. And especially when you have some leadership that is not trying to calm tensions. Okay, can you take that upon yourself to calm tensions? Maybe if you're interacting with a friend who's having a very big response or angry response, what? Can you calm that down? So that's sort of the immediate term. We've also looked at, and there are other people at University of Maryland who are actually carrying out some of these programs. Why can you do long-term to equip people to deal with the nature of the We're not going back. Social media is not going away.

Doug Downs (18:24):

No.

Amy Pate (18:25):

And now you're going to have AI where people can generate things that look real recordings of people, fake social media posts that never got posted video. And it's only going to get better. So it becomes less of like, well, I'm just going to say a conspiracy theory. I'm going to use AI to generate evidence that this is true and I'm going to flood. And if you're not smart, if you're not discerning, you could fall for it, especially as AI improves and stop skimming people, eight fingers on each hand or an extra arm. So there's a professor in the school of education, they're working with nine and 10 year olds on, so they're right at the cusp of being allowed to be on social media. All of them are already exposed to social media. All of them are on YouTube at the very least, building their critical thinking skills and their emotional intelligence to deal with this landscape.

(19:33):

We had a group of students, they actually won a national competition that they were using social media to raise awareness about AI and images and how they can fool you. So in building narratives against radicalization, against extremism, targeting largely college students, there's research on what we call inoculation with communication where you sort of know what the landscape of bad ideas are out there. You expose people to sort of a weakened conversion and then give them the arguments against it. And you're trying to trigger something that's called psychological reactance. In many cases, these people are going to tell you these stories. It's not for your good. And so that makes them more resistant. When they see something like that on social media, they're sort of equipped, they're inoculated like, okay, they know how to respond. They're like, you're not going to exploit me for your ends by with me believing the story and then going off and doing something bad that's going to hurt me. So pre bunking of conspiracy theories and things like that, all of those are, they can be used in sort of an immediate context, but really they're long-term strategies.

Doug Downs (21:13):

That old adage I had as a kid about sticks and stones. It just doesn't apply anymore. The words have deep, deep meaning, and we're taking action on things, which in some cases is good, but in these rare cases, tragic. Amy, thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.

Amy Pate (21:33):

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Doug Downs (21:35):

Here are the top three things we got today from Amy Pate. Number one, polarization is dangerous. Amy explained identity-based polarization fueled by dehumanizing and monolithic language is what makes people more vulnerable to justifying violence. Number two, social media warps reality. She highlighted how algorithms trap people to separate information ecosystems, eroding shared facts and amplifying extreme voices beyond what face-to-face discourse would allow. And number three, leaders and influencers shape outcomes. Amy emphasized the politicians, influencers, and even everyday individuals like you and me can either inflame tensions with rushed bias narratives or help cool them through humanizing careful communication and farzana. Another thing that Amy, the point that she made was that echo chambers are engineered by algorithms. And that really stuck with me too. I was at a conference yesterday with a YouTube expert on their algorithm, and his line was that algorithms, they follow people. They don't set the path. So fingers pointing in different directions there.

Farzana Baduel (22:44):

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I always felt as if we were sort of slaves to the algorithm. But then it kind of makes sense because when I look at my Instagram feed, it's just full of fluffy cats and dogs. And I don't think that's a master strategy by the algorithm gods. It's clearly coming from my own love of my furry fellow friends.

Doug Downs (23:04):

We get these things, they annoy us, and we like that. They annoy us sometimes. Crazy people.

Farzana Baduel (23:09):

I agree. Yeah, I think probably it's a bit of both, really. Now if you'd like to send a message to our guest, Amy Pate, we've got her contact information, show notes, stories and strategies is a co-production of Curzon Public Relations, JGR communications, and Stories and Strategies, podcasts. Reminder to check out our YouTube channel, extended episodes you can find on YouTube. And thank you to our producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And lastly, do us a favor forward this episode to one friend. And thank you so much for listening.