Destructive polarization in digital communication contexts: a critical review and conceptual framework

While the digital turn in communication research offers novel opportunities to study polarization at scale, it also adds complexity to a challenging concept. Ambiguities surrounding the conceptual understanding of polarization in different fields lead to problems in advancing the research in the digital context. The conflation of types and forms of polarization erodes the utility of the concept and opens the door to an uncritical proliferation of technologically determinist perspectives and solutions. We review literature from political, media and communication studies, revealing an increasing focus on polarization within media and communication without sufficient (re-)evaluation and conceptualization. To avoid future indiscriminate use of the term polarization, we advocate for precise delineations when studying polarization as a threat to democracy. We propose a concept of destructive polarization and discuss it with regard to studying its dynamics in a digital communication context, describing its recognizable elements as manifested in communication practices.