Allcott, H., Boxell, L., Conway, J. C., Gentzkow, M., Thaler, M., & Yang, D. Y. (2020). Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic (Working Paper No. 26946; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w26946

Simchon, A., Brady, W. J., & Bavel, J. J. V. (2020). Troll and Divide: The Language of Online Polarization. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/xjd64

Lees, J. M., & Cikara, M. (2020, July 29). Understanding and Combating False Polarization. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ncwez

Pickup, M., Stecula, D., & van der Linden, C. (2020). Novel coronavirus, old partisanship: COVID-19 attitudes and behaviors in the United States and Canada [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/5gy3d

Benton, R. A., Cobb, J. A., & Werner, T. (2020). Firm Partisan Political Positioning and Perceptions of COVID-19-Related Risk [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/tazux

Hurst, D., & Murphy, K. (2020, June 22). Trump’s misleading information enables China to sow discord among allies, research finds. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/23/trumps-misleading-information-enables-china-to-sow-discord-among-allies-research-finds

Fuhrer, J., & Cova, F. (2020). “Quick and dirty”: Intuitive cognitive style predicts trust in Didier Raoult and his hydroxychloroquine-based treatment against COVID-19. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ju62p

US, A. B., The Conversation. (n.d.). Coronavirus Responses Highlight How Humans Have Evolved to Dismiss Facts That Don’t Fit Their Worldview. Scientific American. Retrieved June 30, 2020, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coronavirus-responses-highlight-how-humans-have-evolved-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview/

Green, J., Edgerton, J., Naftel, D., Shoub, K., & Cranmer, S. J. (2020). Elusive consensus: Polarization in elite communication on the COVID-19 pandemic. Science Advances, eabc2717. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc2717

Ekstrom, P. D., & Lai, C. K. (2020, June 18). The Selective Communication of Political Information. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pnr9u

Ziems, C., He, B., Soni, S., & Kumar, S. (2020). Racism is a Virus: Anti-Asian Hate and Counterhate in Social Media during the COVID-19 Crisis. ArXiv:2005.12423 [Physics]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2005.12423

Young, V. A. (2020, May 20). Nearly Half Of The Twitter Accounts Discussing ‘Reopening America’ May Be Bots. Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. https://www.scs.cmu.edu/news/nearly-half-twitter-accounts-discussing-%E2%80%98reopening-america%E2%80%99-may-be-bots

Grubbs, J. B., Warmke, B., Tosi, J., & James, A. S. (2020). Moral Grandstanding and Political Polarization: A Multi-Study Consideration. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/k3ynj

Tomohiro, I. (2020, May 8). Consensus among group members’ shared leadership ratings polarizes group performance. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/psjeu

And important: the role media plays in political polarization. On this topic, I've found works from the Pew useful, like "U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided":

"As the U.S. enters a heated 2020 presidential election year, a new Pew Research Center report finds that Republicans and Democrats place their trust in two nearly inverse news media environments."

Also useful are works from Data & Society like "Media, Technology, Politics: six new pieces on the networked public sphere"

"Although many people are anxious to understand how much influence old and new media had over the US presidential election, the reality is that we will never know comprehensively. We can, though, seek to understand how different cultural and technical factors are shaping the contemporary information landscape."

I chose this article, because it is timely, relevant, easy-to-follow (because it is intuitive), and innovative (using data sources, Twitter, and an innovative method, textual analysis). I hope you enjoy the reading. Please follow my annotations (comments + questions) and respond to the questions I pose. Try to answer them in your own words.

The deregulation of the 90s, consolidating ownership, had consequences. unintended and unanticipated or not.

Polarization Can Be Good

Gruber had linked to Michael Tsai’s roundup of the backlash, calling it “must-read stuff”. In this case, though, Gruber is “throwing his hat in the ring”. And the ring now feels like the site of a burgeoning flamewar. Issue is, here, that the “war” is happening about people who actually enjoy Apple’s products. This isn’t the “religious wars” between Macs and PCs or between Fandroids and Apple fanbois. It’s a whole argument between people who have been purchasing Apple computers and wanted updated ones. A well-known lesson from social psychology is that group polarization deepens divides by encouraging extreme positions. Chuq Von Rospach’s piece contains several comments which could be qualified as “extreme”. And it puts the blame on those who disagree. There are similar pieces on the other side of the equation, surely. Tsai’s roundup should make it possible to identify them. But Gruber has yet to link to them (apart from arguing about specific points like Tim Cook’s quote on the irrelevance of “PCs” and trying to set the record straight on Apple and Intel sharing responsibility for the 16GB limits on new top-of-the-line MacBook Pro desktop replacements).

As an example of the effect of group polarization: my own perspective is that disappointment is real. Wasn’t impressed by what transpired from last week’s announcement. Feeling a bit more excited about the Microsoft Surface Studio than about the Touch Bar, but will likely not buy either any time soon. Because polarization forces me to take sides, my vote would go for the “there’s a serious problem, here”. Not saying Apple is doomed or that each of the problems discussed is a tragedy. But, to me, what is being thrown around sounds quite reasonable, not “trivial and petty”. Can’t be on Von Rospach’s side if that’s where the line is drawn. “You’re either with us or against us.” If you force me to choose, well, bye bye!