Listening as an Antidote to Political Polarization
Professor Donna L. Halper, Ph.D.
Director (Media Ecology)
Global Listening Centre.
Media Historian, Professor, Author, Public
Speaker 2023 Inductee, Massachusetts
Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
I have a friend who is firmly convinced that she could never vote for a Democrat. In fact, she believes that Democrats are the main source of problems in America today. It is a message she hears constantly from the partisan media she consumes. The commentators she trusts give her endless examples of how terrible Democrats are, and since she isn’t exposed to any opposing views, she believes what she is repeatedly told. Meanwhile, I have other friends who see things very differently: they know they could never vote for a Republican, and they are firmly convinced that it’s Republicans who represent everything that is wrong with America today. After all, they have lots of evidence, and the commentators they prefer are always able to reinforce their views with endless examples of how terrible Republicans are.
The belief that “our side” is good and “the other side” is evil permeates our politics. In a July 2024 survey conducted by YouGov, people who identified as Republicans said that folks on their side tend to exemplify such traits as being “patriotic,” “strong,” and “capable.” But when asked about what Democrats are like, Republican respondents said they associate Democrats with being “corrupt,” “dishonest,” and “out of touch.” Conversely, Democrats said that members of their party tend to be “open-minded,” “inclusive,” and “responsible.” And when asked the qualities they associate with Republicans, the answer was “corrupt,” “dishonest,” “hypocritical,” and “extreme.” Interestingly, some Democrats accused Republicans of being in a cult; and some Republicans accused Democrats of being anti-American.
And in case you think this kind of polarization is just an American phenomenon, surveys conducted in other countries yield similar results. In fact, the assertion that a given country has never been more divided can be found all over the world. For example, a November 2022 survey from Statista showed that 88% of respondents from the Netherlands, 78% of respondents from Brazil, 70% of respondents from France, and 67% of respondents from Nigeria agreed with that belief. It is also worth noting that in numerous countries, including Turkey, India, Poland, Brazil, and Bangladesh, autocratic governments have used polarization to their own advantage, staying in power by inflaming their country’s divisions. There are many historical examples of leaders who demonized people from certain ethnic or religious or socioeconomic groups, telling the citizenry that the country’s problems were the result of those people and claiming that only a vote for the leader will keep the country secure.
So, what are some factors in political polarization? One is certainly the media. In many countries, the US among them, people can choose a diet of nothing but partisan, one-sided sources. Too many people don’t know the difference between news reporting (which is based on facts) and commentary (which is based on opinion). In fact, too many people intentionally seek out sources that reinforce what they already believe—a phenomenon known as “confirmation bias.” If, like my friend who believes that all Democrats are evil because that is what she hears over and over, one selects TV channels, radio stations, social media platforms, or publications that only present a binary view, it’s easy to assume that one side must be right and the other side is wrong.
And if the most popular media sources in a country are biased, that can sometimes have deadly consequences. A good example occurred in Rwanda in the early 1990s. The country had been entangled in a civil war between the government and rebel forces, exacerbated by longstanding tensions between the country’s two main ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. A tenuous ceasefire began in August 1993, but then, in early April 1994, Rwandan president Juve nal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was killed when his plane was shot down. His supporters were certain the Tutsis had done it, even though there was no evidence to support that claim. But the president’s supporters launched a campaign to hunt down Tutsis and punish them. Radio was a dominant mass medium in Rwanda, and pro-government radio stations were used to stir up the public and persuade them that the Tutsi were disloyal, dishonest, and dangerous. People who tuned in to Rwanda’s broadcasting stations, especially Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), did not hear accurate or unbiased information. Rather, they heard pro-Hutu propaganda, with demands for retribution against the Tutsis. Broadcasters relentlessly referred to Tutsis as sub-human, as vermin and cockroaches who deserved to be exterminated.4 Listeners heard numerous stories, many of which were invented, of Tutsi treachery. Hunting down Tutsis was presented as patriotic, work that everyone in the community should do. In a country where each side had long distrusted the other, it wasn’t hard to convince people on one side to lash out at the other. And in the end, more 500,000 Tutsis were killed in what came to be known as the Rwandan genocide.
It would be easy for us to insist that something like this could never happen today. But it could. And it has, thanks in large part to the rise of social media. It’s no longer just radio or television where angry and inflammatory rhetoric about “the other” can be found. The pervasiveness of social media has made it easier to disseminate myths and misinformation about those who are perceived as different, or to spread rumors about terrible things these “others” have allegedly done. Just as we saw in Rwanda with radio, it was now the online world where hatred and outrage flourished. For example, in 2016-2017, in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), a majority Buddhist country, hate speech about the Muslim minority Rohingya had been escalating on social media for the past few years. It culminated in a civil war, as the government and Rohingya militias fought. Meanwhile, inflamed by online stories, especially on Facebook,5 that the Rohingya were “foreign” and had disrespected Buddhism, angry mobs, often aided by the Burmese military, rampaged through Rohingya villages, burning down buildings and homes, and attacking anyone in their path—whether armed or not, including women and children; numerous sexual assaults also occurred.6 In desperation, many Rohingya fled to neighboring countries, but about 25,000 were killed.
In addition to the polarizing discourses we encounter via the media, and the unethical political leaders who encourage their followers to hate anyone with the “wrong” views, one important factor in today’s political polarization is that we no longer socialize with others as much as we used to. While it might be easy to attribute this to yet another consequence of the COVID Pandemic of 2020, sociologist Robert Putnam was already noting the phenomenon of increased social isolation back in the 1990s. He wrote about how people were no longer joining groups like bowling leagues, or participating in volunteerism, or engaging in other activities that used to bring together people from divergent backgrounds. He subsequently observed that more people were staying home, engaging in individual pursuits— whether watching TV, or spending hours online— rather than going out and getting to know their neighbors, or making new friends.7 In a world where we seldom meet “the other,” it becomes much easier to believe the worst about them.
I wish I had a magic answer for all of this. I wish I could say that if everyone turned off their TV or stepped away from their computer, all our problems would be solved. Unfortunately, those problems have been around for a while, and it will take time to bring about change. But there is something we can do to make a start: We can start listening to each other. That might seem like an overly simplistic an-swer, but all over the world, there are examples of what happens when we don’t—that’s how prejudice and mistrust can take root and spread. If we can make the time to get to know what others believe, if we can find out what is important to them, it may become easier to discover what we have in common. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.” 8 I’ve found that to be true: if we begin to listen more to others, gradually, they begin to listen more to us, and the result is greater understanding.
That’s a theme that came up in a speech by former US President Barack Obama, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago recently. As he discussed why he believed in democracy, he reminded the audience that, “Democracy isn’t just a bunch of abstract principles and dusty laws in some book somewhere. It’s the values we live by, and the way we treat each other—including those who don’t look like us or pray like us or see the world exactly like we do. That sense of mutual respect has to be part of our message.”
And that brings me back to my friend who had only heard horrible things about Democrats. While I had met Republicans before, most came from big cities, just like I do, and they tended to have moderate views on most issues. My friend, however, is from a rural part of the deep South, and her perspectives tend to be very conservative. But somehow, for nearly three decades, she and I have found a way to communicate. It hasn’t always been easy—I don’t agree with many of her views, nor does she agree with many of mine. But we learned to listen, and we learned to respect how the other sees the world. She has not changed her beliefs, but she has made room for mine, and I have done the same. It would be easy for either of us to just say something dismissive, or not communicate at all. What I’ve learned from the relationship is that she and I actually want many of the same things—we just see different pathways to achieving them. Imagine if more of us could sit down at a coffee shop, enjoy some pastry, and exchange ideas. Imagine if more of us could see “the other side” not as an enemy but as an opportunity to learn something new. I am firmly convinced that the way to end political polarization begins with respecting the other person’s views. And that first step is being willing to listen.
References:
1 Jamie Ballard, “How Americans Describe the Democratic and
Republican Parties,” YouGov.com, July 8, 2024. https://
today.yougov.com/politics/articles/49988-how-americans-describe
-democratic-republican-parties-poll
2 Statista Research Department, “Share of population who is of the
opinion that their country is more divided today than in the past in
2022, by country,” Statista.com, July 4, 2024, https://
www.statista.com/statistics/1362781/polarization-countriesdivided-world/
3 Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue, “How to Understand
the Global Spread of Political Polarization,” Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, October 1, 2019, https://
carnegieendowment.org/posts/2019/10/how-to-understand-theglobal-spread-of-political-polarization?lang=en
4 Christine L. Kellow and H. Leslie Steeves, “The Role of Radio in
the Rwandan Genocide,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 48, No.
3 (Summer 1998), 120.
5 Daniel Zaleznik, “Facebook and Genocide: How Facebook contributed to genocide in Myanmar and why it will not be held accountable,” Harvard University Law School Systemic Justice Project, 2021, https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-andgenocide-how-facebook-contributed-to-genocide-in-myanmar-and
-why-it-will-not-be-held-accountable/
6 These events were documented in a report from Amnesty International. “Myanmar: Facebook’s Systems Promoted Violence
Against Rohingya,” Amnesty International, September 29, 2022,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmarfacebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-metaowes-reparations-new-report/
7 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000),
8 There is little verifiable evidence that Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world;” this quote is the closest to it we
can find. Brian Morton, “Falser Words Were Never Spoken,” New
York Times, August 29, 2011, https://
www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-neverspoken.html
9 Barack Obama, Speech at the Democratic National Convention,
August 21, 2024, https://barackobama.medium.com/our-remarksat-the-2024-democratic-national-convention-4b1f8a9dce8c
