Next Steps in Quantitative Approaches to Building an Applied Science of Discourse Analysis in Political Polarization.

Authors

Eric HamiltonFollow
Liane WeintraubFollow
Marguerite/Gigi WilliamsonFollow
Jianxing Ludwig Yu

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Streaming Media

Publication Date

11-2024

Keywords

political discourse, political polarization, quantitative ethnography, QE, epistemic network analysis, ENA, ordered network analysis, ONA, complex adaptive systems, neural networks.

Abstract

The 2024 US presidential election season parallels that of other countries in reflecting profound rancor and divisiveness. This discord threatens the underlying fabric of global society and the capacity of individual nations to address complex challenges they face. The advent of social media and rapid communication systems more generally have dramatically intensified some of the most destructive aspects of political polarization. The proposed symposium contributes to building that part of a growing applied science of political polarization that examines discourse patterns - and in so doing, to channeling that science into practical steps that convert political differences into discourse with greater emphasis on problem-solving than on acrimony and attack. Quantitative ethnography has already contributed to earlier efforts to building applied science with frameworks that help parse acrimonious discourse and that help to assess or evaluate the efficacy of interventions to reduce polarization. These efforts have also recognized that they are only beginning to frame the application of quantitative tools to make sense both of polarization and of such potential interventions. The symposium convenes individuals who have contributed to current and prior ICQE proceedings, along with the broader QE community, a) to highlight current work, questions, insights, and issues relevant to significantly advancing the use of discourse analysis to advance the science of polarization and b) an agenda that proposes the use of that science to formulate, inform, assess, and evaluate interventions that reduce the destructive aspects of polarization.

Publication Title

Springer

First Page

70

Last Page

78

Recommended Citation

2. Hamilton, E., Weintraub, L., Williamson, M., & Yu, J.L. (2024). Next Steps in Quantitative Approaches to Building an Applied Science of Discourse Analysis in Political Polarization. In Sixth international conference on quantitative ethnography: Conference proceedings supplement (pp. 70–78). Springer. https://www.qesoc.org/images/pdf/ICQE24_Supplement_Proceedings.pdf