Political polarisation is a prominent feature of democratic backsliding around the world and one of the greatest challenges of contemporary governance because it divides society and the electorate into mutually distrustful camps. Particularly undermining trust and democracy is affective polarisation: when social identities increasingly coincide with political preferences, leading to a dislike of supporters of opposing parties, and even to practices of discrimination and exclusion, and in extreme cases, violence. The role of social media engagement in dynamics of affective polarisation and trust is weakly understood for countries in the Global South and particularly among youth: a group that has least faith in democracy (OSF 2023).
The YAPT project, located in Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK, will explore the extent to which young people’s social media engagement with online manifestations of party polarisation influences their levels of social and institutional trust, and consequently, their social and political behaviours. In Brazil, India, and South Africa, the project will focus on understanding dynamics of polarisation, trust and behaviours among urban youth. In the UK, the project will work with diaspora youth from these three countries, analysing their social media engagement with polarised debates in their countries of origin.
As an interdisciplinary study, YAPT will combine qualitative, participatory research to capture youth voices, with social media analytics (SMA) that will analyse online polarised debate at scale. Preliminary findings will inform the design of deliberative MiniPublics, followed by another round of qualitative research, which will explore whether it is possible to engage youth in ways that reduces polarised debates and increases social and institutional trust. With the results of the research, the project aims to uncover entry-points for depolarisation. The project partners will implement country-level and global engagement activities, with bespoke outputs for academia, policy makers, civil society and youth.
The project will be implemented by the Institute of Development Studies in collaboration with researchers at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, the University of Witswatersrand (South Africa), CEBRAP (Brazil), and PDAG (India). Each methodology will be co-designed and involve close collaboration between social scientists and data scientists. The Project lead is Marjoke Oosterom.
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