社交媒体竞选如何强化美国政治极化:基于美国新冠议题的框架化考察

How Political Campaign on the Social Media Strengthens the U.S.Political Polarization:A Case Study of Framing the COVID-19 Issue

政治极化是指人们越来越倾向于用“我们”和“他们”来描述当前的政治与社会,一个社会中的正常多样性越来越沿着一个维度发展,政治与社会共识变得难以达成。政治极化存在政党制度、经济发展不平衡、贫富分化、政治文化等多元成因,社交媒体竞选进一步强化了政治极化。聚焦社交媒体竞选如何强化当前美国政治极化的问题,运用框架化理论下的“级联网络激活模型”,可以发现总统候选人的框架建构加强了二元对立的框架竞争模式,在框架扩散中两党政治精英中建制派与反建制派的对立强化,传统媒体与社交媒体在框架选择中也存在差异,因而公众在对框架认知方面亦强化了观点对立的模式。在社交媒体竞选时代,民主党和共和党政治精英与各自的支持者之间形成了两个截然不同的信息闭环,各自的话语框架不断被强化,同时也迫使独立公众“选边站”,尽管信息的选择越来越具多元性,但民意却越来越呈现分裂与对抗。

Political polarization is a process whereby people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of“Us”versus“Them.”With such a context,it is harder and harder to achieve social consensus.This article seeks to explore how today's U.S.political polarization has been strengthened by the political campaign on the social media.Based on a Cascading Network Activation Model,it explores how the issue of Covid-19 has been framed through Democratic and Republic political elites.It finds that the Democratic elites and liberal media have been highly aligned with Biden's discourse framework,while the consistency between the Republican elites and Trump is not apparent.However,Trump has successfully framed the issue through the conservative media.Thus,the competing frames between the two parties have been constantly strengthened in their respective channels,and the views of the public on the issue have divided.The political polarization and political decay caused by such a framing process deserve scholars'further attentions.