141
(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization
Reflecting Habermas’ ideal communication space in the United States of America and Finland
MATTI NELIMARKKA∗, University of Helsinki and Aalto University
JEAN PHILIPPE RANCY, Syracuse University
JENNIFER GRYGIEL, Syracuse University
BRYAN SEMAAN, Syracuse University
Social Media platforms are increasingly being used for political activities and communication, and research
suggests that social media design and use is contributing to the polarization of the public sphere. This study
draws on Habermas’ ideals concerning deliberative democracy to explore if novel interface designs that
diversify information sources through content recommendation, can decrease polarization. Through a design-
probe interview approach and insights generated from 19 political and citizen experts in Finland and the
United States, we found that our deliberative design can lead to depolarization, while creating additional
complexity through which users question content and information. We discuss the need to move beyond naive
content recommendation, and user interface level changes, in order to work towards a depolarized public
sphere.
CCS Concepts: •Human-centered computing→Collaborative and social computing; Empirical stud-
ies in collaborative and social computing; Interaction design process and methods; • Applied computing
→ Law, social and behavioral sciences;
Additional Key Words and Phrases: political polarization; social media; Habermas; speculative design; compar-
ative research
ACM Reference Format:
Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan. 2019. (Re)Design to Mitigate
Political Polarization: Reflecting Habermas’ ideal communication space in the United States of America
and Finland. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 141 (November 2019), 25 pages. https:
//doi.org/10.1145/3359243
1 INTRODUCTION
Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, invite the formation of ad-hoc digital public
spheres through which people can come together to engage in political exchanges either through
the sharing of information and opinions, or by engaging in discussion [17, 65, 96, 126]. However,
∗Corresponding author, matti.nelimarkka@helsinki.fi
Authors’ addresses: Matti Nelimarkka, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Science, Centre for Social Data Science,
P.O. Box 18 (Unioninkatu 35), Helsinki, Finland, Aalto University, Department of Computer Science and Helsinki Institute
for Information Technology HIIT, P.O. Box 15400 (Konemiehentie 2), Espoo, Finland, matti.nelimarkka@helsinki.fi; Jean
Philippe Rancy, Syracuse University, School of Information, 343 Hinds Hall, Syracuse, New York, jrancy@syr.edu; Jennifer
Grygiel, Syracuse University, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, 215 University Place, Syracuse, New
York, jgrygiel@syr.edu; Bryan Semaan, Syracuse University, School of Information, 343 Hinds Hall, Syracuse, New York,
bsemaan@syr.edu.
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3359243
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 3, No. CSCW, Article 141. Publication date: November 2019.
141:2 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
research has highlighted that social media users tend to gravitate towards like-minded people, and
information sources that re-enforce their own opinions [7, 45, 53, 102]. This endangers the quality
of political discussions, as alternative perspectives critical in political decision-making processes
are absent. The scholarly community has referred to the phenomena in a variety of ways: selective
exposure [1, 79–81], echo chambers [62, 117], or filter bubbles [97]. These phenomena have been
linked with political polarization, which can be characterized as the increased ideological distance
between members of society [70].
Throughout Western democracies, political polarization is considered to be on the rise [26, 70,
122, 125], but the role of social media is unclear. Scholars have empirically argued that social media
is driving polarization [1, 62, 79, 81, 97, 117], while others have found that platforms are leading
towards depolarization [32, 36, 105]. More generally, research has shown the importance of studying
polarization as it can contribute to social instability [70]. To mitigate these negative effects, the
HCI research community has been involved in developing systems to decrease polarization, but
these efforts have focused too narrowly on systems that aim to balance and diversify information
and news [20, 41, 42, 85, 98]. Nelimarkka et al. [89] refer to this issue as the “Common Design
Agenda,” and discuss the need to expand research, and develop alternative design solutions, in
order to effectively work towards depolarization.
In this study, we developed and tested alternative interface designs inspired by Habermas’ [54]
ideals of deliberative democracy, and through a design-probe inspired interview approach, we
explore how design thinking can contribute to depolarization. Specifically, we investigate how
19 informants reacted to, and reflected on, our interface designs in order to understand how
to (re)design interfaces to depolarize the online public sphere (RQ1). Furthermore, we seek to
understand what elements may limit such efforts (RQ2) and examine indications of cross-national
differences to explore how different socio-cultural factors must be accounted for when designing
to mitigate polarization (RQ3). We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for
reducing political polarization and the challenges which relate to such designs.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Deliberative Democracy and the Public Sphere
Deliberative democracy, or political deliberation, is a process through which citizens participate
in discourse around public issues [23, 31, 54, 58] and is utopian in nature [28] as it is rooted in
democratic idealism that promotes civil discourse amongst citizens who are part of the greater public
[23]. According to Habermas, deliberative democracy exists in the public sphere, a communication
space that brings together people from different publics, whereby people can engage in the exchange
of information and opinions, and discourse [23, 31, 54, 58]. For a public sphere to work, it should:
(1) promote the inclusion of all people who are impacted by decision-making processes, (2) occur in
a civil and well-informed manner to encourage rational argumentation and constructive dialogue,
and (3) support idea role taking whereby people are encouraged to reflect on other perspectives
than those held by oneself. We will further elaborate these concepts in Section 3.5.
Digital platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, can be conceptualized as a type of online
public sphere [9, 44]. That is, these platforms provide socio-technical mechanisms through which
diverse actors from different publics can come together to engage in political deliberation. Recent
scholarship has explored the emergence of social media as public spheres through explorations of
political blogs [22, 51], political discussion forums [2, 63], and social networking sites [9, 104].
While social media platforms can be viewed as public spheres, scholars have explored the extent to
which these online spaces actually adhere to Habermas’ [54] vision. Many concerns have been raised,
including the lack of rational discussions [63], problems in acknowledging other users perspectives
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 3, No. CSCW, Article 141. Publication date: November 2019.
(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:3
[5, 9], or exclusive participation structures [2, 63]. Furthermore, an underlying argument against
Habermas’ work has been the structural transformation of public discussion from open spaces (like
cafés) to closed spaces. Moreover, the role of digital platforms as business enterprises has been of
concern to some scholars [23]. However, even with these criticisms, the concept of public sphere
has been extensively used to study digital spaces (e.g., [2, 9, 22, 51, 63, 90, 104]), thus motivating us
to use this framework as well.
2.2 Political Polarization and the Online Public Sphere
A primary issue identified in scholarship exploring the public sphere, both online and offline, relates
to the concept of polarization. Political polarization refers to the increase of ideological distance
between individuals or groups [70].
Political polarization has devastating societal impacts as the divergence of political attitudes
and beliefs, towards politically opposing extremes, can lead to a lack of common ground [70]. This
lack of common ground can create societal instability as people from opposing poles might work
in opposition as opposed to working in service of the greater good. Polarization may decrease
interest and trust in political decision-making processes [70, 127]. As such, social scientists have
been concerned with the effects of political polarization on society and the political climate. Indeed,
recent work in the United States has found that political polarization between political parties [70]
and in the media [102] has increased. Findings among citizens have been more mixed [35, 70, 102].
An increase in political polarization has been echoed in European scholarship as well [26, 122, 125].
With respect to polarization and social media, users tend to gravitate towards people who are like
them, and information sources that re-enforce their own opinions and perspectives [7]. Scholars
have developed concepts to situate this phenomenon, such as selective exposure [1, 79–81], echo
chambers [62, 117], and filter bubbles [97]. For example, in their study of political blogs, Adamic
& Glance [1] reported that the majority of political blogs only link to other blogs that shared the
same political ideology. Similarly, Gilbert et al. [46] found that blogs were echo chambers–that is,
blog comments were most likely to agree with the ideology presented by the original blog post.
2.3 Political polarization and social media platforms
More recent research on social media’s role in creating polarization have been mixed. Some suggest
that social media does not contribute towards political polarization. Fletcher & Nielsen [36] show that
due to incidental exposure, social media users use many more digital media sources than non-users.
Messing & Westwood [80] noted in their study that social media could increase exposure to diverse
political views and lastly, Dubois & Blank [32] show that the greater a users’ interest in politics
often manifests in diversity-seeking behavior and openness to changing one’s political opinions.
Thus, social media is not always to blame for polarization. Researchers even suggest that citizens
engage in depolarizing practices, where people are actively seeking diverse information [114].
People do not filter information that contradicts their personal views [59]. Moreover, people have
agency in constructing their social media environments to promote depolarization by choosing the
social media sites, and in turn, controlling the diversity of the information sources and audiences
they engage with [80, 105].
However, other scholars have argued that social media environments create a polarization effect.
Itkonen et al. [60] show that Facebook users tend to construct their online social networks such
that their friends share their perspectives and political backgrounds. Similarly, Barbera et al. [8]
show that echo-chamber effects are present particularly in connection with political issues on
Twitter. Pariser [97] argues how algorithms shape public interaction and thus contributing to the
increase of political polarization and igniting both public and politicians’ interest on this topic.
As such, the socio-technical systems that people use for political deliberation can lead to biased
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141:4 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
media consumption, which can manifest in a persons’ reality becoming “distorted.” However,
many scholars argue that political polarization is (at least partly) fueled by biases within the
computer-mediated communication environment.
To conclude, there is mixed evidence concerning whether or not social media is contributing to
increased political polarization. According to some, social media creates richer, more diverse media
environment and thus, should push against polarization in the society [32, 36, 80]. Conversely,
others blame social media services and their design for creating limited media environments that,
in turn, lead to polarization [97]. Furthermore, it is difficult to say if social media causes political
polarization, what is the mechanism that drives it. It can be caused by the design of technical
systems (such as algorithmic design, [97]) or by social processes (like befriending like-minded
people, [7]).
2.4 Designing for Depolarization
It is still unclear whether social media contributes to political polarization, it nonetheless remains an
important issue to explore and address. We know that socio-technical systems and digital interfaces
can establish social norms [109], and it is our imperative as designers to think more deeply about
the potential negative implications of the systems we design. For example, Matamoros-Fernandez
[77] calls out that the design of platforms may partly contribute to online racism. As Winner [124]
and Nissenbaum [92] have argued: technologies are never neutral. Therefore, it is important to
think deeply about how we can re-design current social media platforms such that we can mitigate
the harmful effects of polarization. Considering interfaces can enforce and re-configure social
norms and practices, we must then deeply consider how we can re-design existing systems. Even if,
as some argue [32, 36, 80], current designs are mitigating polarization, we should consider where
and how we can expand upon such designs.
Today, HCI scholarship exploring how to mitigate the effects of polarization has focused on
designing systems to promote diversity in information consumption [40, 85–87, 98]. Specifically,
previous work has focused on developing systems to promote diverse news reading practices.
For example, researchers have proposed systems where news content recommendations come
from opposite sides of political spectrum [86, 87, 98]. Moreover, studies have suggested that the
exposure to diversity should be taken as a design goal for recommendation systems [57]. Also, tools
which raise self-reflection through quantifying how balanced ones’ news reading habits have been
proposed [85]. Self-reflection has also been integrated to help people engage with different political
opinions [40]. Across these systems, the goal has been to promote behavioral change techniques to
encourage the depolarization of news reading habits.
Similarly, scholars have explored how friendship recommendations may be used for depolariza-
tion. For example, social media services can recommend new friends in a way that diversifies users’
friendship networks [41, 42, 80]. Their main argument is that this would increase the chances of
meeting people from opposite perspectives and observe how their perspective is present in this
discussions. This could, in turn, lead people to be exposed to diversity in information, opinions,
and discourse. However, even such designs can lead to polarization [6].
This focus on developing recommendation or behavioral change systems with depolarization in
mind has been labeled as the “Common Design Agenda” [89]. Nelimarkka et al. [89] studied a real
world case which would be emerging from such systems and observed that it can lead to antisocial
behavior and hostility towards the other group. Based on these findings, they concluded that more
work is needed to fully realize how we can design for depolarization.
A critical challenge is developing features that enable citizens to participate freely, to engage
with diverse audiences and consider alternative perspectives, and engage in political deliberation
through well-informed and justified discourse. Due to Habermas’ influential role in studies of digital
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:5
ID Description ID Description
FI-P1 Team leader for editorials and letters to editors sections for a Finnish
nationally distributed newspaper. Male, late 40s.
US-P1 Political reporter for an online-only politics specialized outlet. Female,
mid-20s.
FI-P2 Product lead in charge of digital news reading application for a Finnish
television broadcaster. Male, mid-30s.
US-P2 Research fellow in political science. Engages with politics mostly in-
person, not with strangers. Male, late 20s.
FI-P3 Ministerial adviser working on the topic of media policy in Finland.
Male, early 30s.
US-P3 Professor of political science. Uses Facebook and Twitter to follow po-
litical issues. Female, late 30s.
Fi-P4 Social media consultant for a political party in Finland. Female, early
30s.
FI-P5 Ministerial advisor working on areas of democracy and participation.
Male, early 40s.
US-C1 HR representative. Uses Twitter and Facebook to engage in political
discussion. Male, late 30s.
FI-C1 Entrepreneur and CEO of ICT related company. Actively blogs and en-
gages to political discussions in Finnish non-partisan Facebook groups.
Male, mid-30s.
US-C2 Works in childcare & teaches. Uses Facebook to engage in political
information exchange. Female, mid-20s.
FI-C2 Retiree, actively blogs and has recently started to use Twitter to engage
with politicians. Female. early 70s.
US-C3 Teacher. Engages politics in Facebook. Male, mid-20s.
FI-C3 Communications and strategy consultant and entrepreneur. Blogs and
Tweets actively of politics. Male, early 50s.
US-C4 Working in the IT industry; uses Facebook and Twitter to discuss pol-
itics with family and friends. Male, mid-20s.
FI-C4 Retiree and entrepreneur. Blogs actively of politics. Male, mid-60s. US-C5 Working in the IT industry; uses Facebook and Twitter for political
discussions. Female, early-20s.
FI-C5 Student at a University of Technology. Uses Facebook groups, Discord
etc. to engage into political discussions. Male, late 20s.
US-C6 Student. Discusses politics with friends in Facebook. Female, mid-20s.
Table 1. Interviewee backgrounds.
space (e.g., [2, 9, 22, 51, 63, 90, 104]), our design work follows principles of deliberative democracy
to achieve the goal stated above. However, as we have observed already above, the framework is
debated [e.g., 88]. For example, Dewey [28] is used to critique his conception of the public sphere
as being highly utopian, while others have described his values as difficult to implement in online
spaces [23]. In particular, Dewey [28], in “The Public and its Problems”, describes stark realities of
civic life related to when, how, and who can participate in the democracy. Others have pointed out
that the goal of rational discussion may not leave space for personal experiences and affects, critical
in political decision-making as well [14]. While our work does not seek to expand the political
philosophy of designing for depolarization, it is important to consider limitations of deliberative
democracy as well.
3 RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research context
This research employs a comparative design across two different nations: Finland and the United
States. The nations studied have different levels of political polarization, which may lead to different
user reactions and findings at the country-level, given research that suggests that social media
has polarizing potential (see Section 2.3). Furthermore, the two countries demonstrate different
media systems; in Finland the public broadcasting and non-partisan editorial media are prominent,
while in the United States many media outlets demonstrate some degree of partisan bias [56]. With
regard to political communication, findings have shown that social and digital media may have
country level variations [36, 73, 120]. We seek to study how depolarization design choices may be
different across context. Required depolarization efforts in a nation where there is high polarization
and a partisan media environment may be different a nation where there is lower polarization
and more access to public and non-partisan media. Therefore, comparative approach explores if
interface design contains aspects that may inadvertently introduce even deeper polarization.
3.1.1 Polarization in the United States. American society can be described as one that is primed
to be polarized. Firstly, it has a two-party system, which aids to the polarization development in
decision making [72]. Similarly, the United States is a compilation of 50 individual states and has
politically divided geographic regions which contribute to polarization [34]. However, polarization
is not only occurring due to the political system. Media is often partisan, even hyperpartisan at
times, [99]. This aspect highlights that while polarization has been a recently discussed theme, this
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141:6 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
characteristic of US media has been around since colonial times [27]. Polarization also expands to
citizens’ attitudes, where an increase ideological distance has been seen since 1990s [19]. American
society is also culturally polarized along political lines [34]. Partisan issues include immigration,
abortion and gun control [33, 71] and Americans are aware of the partisanism, which can make
them even more partisan [103].
3.1.2 Polarization in Finland. Unlike the United States, Finland has traditionally been resilient
towards political polarization. First, its political system and society is setup differently from the
U.S. Like many other European countries, Finland uses a multiparty system and has ten different
parties in the parliament at this time. Furthermore, the country has high ethnic homogeneity
and is characterized by Nordic values which manifest as high societal trust, including high trust
among citizens and between citizens and the government [18]. The high ethnic homogeneity
stands out even within several European counterparts and Nordic nations. Furthermore, Finnish
politics has been consensus-driven and corporatist, that is, political parties and trade unions have
negotiated together when larger social changes have been implemented. Their degree make Finland
different from other European and Nordic nations. These factors would contribute to a decrease of
political polarization and provide a different historical context for polarization. Indeed, few issues
have polarized the Finnish public at a national level historically. That said, recent developments
of immigration and an increase in asylum-seekers has increased polarization across the nation
[10, 122]. This can be in part connected to the global increase of political populism [26, 70, 122, 125],
as one party is driving the immigration agenda strongly [68].
3.2 Participants and Recruitment
This study draws on semi-structured interviews [107] with citizens from different publics to
understand the potential opportunities and challenges of different approaches for mitigating
polarization through social media re-design. The study was initiated during Summer 2018 and was
completed in September 2018.
We conducted a total of 19 interviews with members of different publics. Nine were with political
experts, who we define as people whose work includes participation in the mediated political
discussions or have explicit focus centered around reporting on political events and other political
news, such as journalists, governmental officials and political elites. Ten were expert citizens who
use social media in the context of political interaction, but do not have a similar work-related
connection to the theme.
Moreover, from our total of 19 interviews, ten interviews were conducted in Finland with
Finnish citizens, and nine were conducted in the United States (US) with US citizens. Table 1
briefly summarizes the background of our interviewees which spanned different age and gender
populations, somewhat biased towards younger males who are more active on politics in online
spaces [11]. The interviews for expert citizens lasted on average 60 minutes (min: 42, max: 84).
The interviews with political experts were somewhat shorter with a similar average but higher
variance (min: 32, max: 83). We chose to limit the length of interviews with political experts. Elite
interview guidelines [83] and our prior experience suggests their time is limited, and time for
extensive interviews may not be available.
We recruited participants for the study through amulti-faceted effort, including postings on public
social media accounts and social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. The research team
also sought connections through their personal networks. Namely, two authors have connections
with media entities in Finland and the US, and actively recruited through their networks. In addition,
snowball sampling was conducted after each interview.
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:7
For expert citizens, participant eligibility was determined by an interest in politics as well as
use of at least one social media platform, while eligibility for political experts required that they
were professionally engaged with political content, or immersed in the public sphere as politicians,
government official or similar elite role, and were also users of social media. This was important as
we wanted to ensure our participants were both familiar with the political system as well as with
social media platforms.
3.3 Data Collection
The interviews were semi-structured and conducted similarly both in the United States and Finland.
The semi-structured interview protocol was divided into three major sections. The first section
asked informants for background information, and explored how they were using social media to
engage in political interactions. The second section sought to understand how our participants
felt about the various social media platforms they use with respect to political interaction, and
if and where they might be improved. This was unguided task where we asked them to identify
problems and think about how they might solve them. The third and final section was inspired
by design research methods. In utilizing this method, we designed a total of four interfaces that
each underscored a different public sphere value (as per Habermas), which we had participants
go through one at a time. This form of inquiry served as a probing device such that the research
team could uncover people’s conceptual models for how they might react to potential design
opportunities to mitigate polarization. We describe this method and our interfaces in greater detail
below.
3.4 Data Analysis
In regards to the data analysis, we focused on the second and third part of the interviews, while the
first section will be used to contextualize our participants and their views. The interview sessions
were recorded and transcribed for purposes of analysis and the coding process was continuous,
and utilizing an approach consisting of open and axial coding.
The Finnish and U.S. research team members met several times to jointly interpret the various
design probes and to discuss reoccurring themes found in the dataset. After an initial round of
coding across the two teams, a collaborative coding approach was adopted [113] as a mechanism
for developing a shared conceptualization of emergent phenomena. We then conducted iterative
and inductive analysis of our interview transcripts using open coding [107] across our two field
sites. During this time, phenomena were identified, named, and categorized.
From this, several codes emerged, which weremerged into several overarching categories through
axial coding, into two major categories related to how design can depolarize or polarize the public
sphere [107]. Our prior familiarity of deliberative democracy and previous works in the area of
depolarization have sensitized us to these ideas and their critique. Therefore, the classification did
not emerge from tabula rasa, but rather, like is often the case, from your previous engagements
with these questions [119]. However, instead of applying a predefined classification framework on
potential themes, our aim was to “give voice to the data” through an open analysis approach.
3.5 Design probes
We used four different user interfaces to seek participant feedback and insights (see Figure 1).
These designs are an extension of previous work [89]. The designs cover several aspects of the
design space: they target either the consumer of social media (Figures 1a and 1c) or the creator
of new content (Figures 1b and 1d). They demonstrate algorithmic recommendations (Figures 1a
or 1b) or recommendation through social context (Figures 1c and 1d). The object recommended
is either several links (Figures 1a and 1b), a single link (Figure 1c) or discussions about a link
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141:8 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
Political crisis in the United States!
You might be interested on following alternative perspectives
John Doe shared to following article
Snopes 
investigated: Did 
N.N. admit that..
N.N. claims that … N.N. has totally 
failed in …
(a) The Common Design Agenda interface
Have you seen this? LOL!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/…
You might be interested on following alternative perspectives before sharing
this to your friends
Snopes 
investigated:Is it 
true that…..
N.N. claims that … N.N. has totally 
failed in …
(b) Proactive information provision
Political crisis in the United States!
John Doe shared to following article
Jake Doe shared following link of the same story
Friend of your wife
Snopes investigated: Did N.N. 
admit that …
(c) Ideal role taking
Here’s what other’s have said about this link:
Fox news writes a fake 
story yet again. …
Jake Doe
Friend of your wife
Have you seen this? LOL!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/…
Fox news politics section 
surprised me! However, they 
did not seem to address …
John Smith
Your friend
(d) Discussion driven recommendations
Fig. 1. Speculative design user interfaces, adapted to U.S. media context. For Finnish media context, see
supplementary online material.
(Figure 1d). They also present different number perspectives present from three (Figures 1a, 1b) to
two (Figure 1d) to one (Figure 1c) additional perspective. In this work, we expand prior work [89]
and propose designs to inform Habermas’ values, following conceptual design inquiry [111].
In adopting this perspective, the designs we developed do not draw on fiction; rather, they are
based on existing social media platforms. Our designs mimic the user interface currently used by
Facebook. In terms of user-interface novelty, these could be implemented in the present. However,
in terms of automated content analysis, such systems require extensive detection of political leaning
and bias – or extensive human curation. We believe that this similarity would ensure that our
interfaces could be readily understood by informants and they could position the interfaces as part
of their everyday life. We use these probes as a tool for critiquing design (e.g., [101]), such that we
can inform the potential re-design of existing social media platforms to better support political
interactions and engagement across diverse publics. Our use of these design probes acts as value
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:9
statements in the interview process, thus using the statements instead of questions to open the
conversation with our informants [value statements are used by social scientists e.g., 106, 121].
Our approach to use design probes to reflect values is influenced by increasing research applying
speculative and critical design tools [3, 101]. However, speculative and critical design use con-
frontation [30] or exaggeration [16] as to emphasize the design research process. While approaches
such as adversarial design [30] or design fiction [16] can be used as a tool for social critique of
technology. The extent they can be used in more social science motivated research (not design
research) is an open question. Research methods for social science oriented design research are only
emerging [for example, design sociology 74]. Both design research and social science motivated
studies can drive particular theoretical concepts [111]. However, we consider that over speculative
interfaces – where it is obvious for participants that they are speculative and not intended for
use – may limit their utility for social science oriented research. Therefore, our choice is to use
probes which could be deployed already today to engage participants’ thinking about mitigating
polarization. However, they are not indented to be design explorations but rather manifestations of
potential naive implementations of Habermas’ ideas.
3.5.1 The Common Design Agenda interface. This design implementation provides alternative
sources for the same news story under the shared story (see Figure 1a). The interface incorporates a
simple persuasive design technique to reduce the effort needed to find alternative sources of infor-
mation [37]. Based on previous work, the balance of recommended content is vital for acceptance,
and the links provided are to sites which provide alternative perspectives–that is, sites that both
support and counter the media content [86, 87]. This design is the baseline condition, which is used
to challenge three additional design concepts.
Expanding the idea of balanced content, we intentional used three different content types in link
recommendation. Instead of focusing on different perspectives present in editorial media [86, 87],
we wished to reflect the current media environment where digital-only outlets can be easily setup.
Therefore, there is a link to a fact checking site (Snopes and Faktabaari), link to a highly rebutable
private media site (ABC News and Helsingin Sanomat), and, a source with the reputation of extreme
bias (Breitbart and MV-lehti). In other probes, we also used a well-established partisan sites (Fox
News and Vihreä Lanka). The sites were similar kind across the two research sites. We used the
range explore how our interviewees react to such diversity, and what such reactions tell us about
ability to create a public sphere across diverse opinions.
3.5.2 Proactive information provision. Increasing participants’ knowledge on a topic is a key
aspect of deliberative democracy. For example, deliberative minipublics–a formal method developed
to enhance citizen participation into political decision making–include several efforts to provide
information before decision making [95]. The aspects of gaining knowledge is seen so critical that
many studies report knowledge gain as an output variable of the processes [39, 112].
Following these ideas, this design seeks to provide users with more information to help support
discourse in the public sphere. In the common design agenda implementation, the new information
provision seeks to help the reader assess content and formulation and informed opinion. However,
by providing the information to the poster (see Figure 1b), the interface can promote diverse and
well-informed discussion by increasing information based on which the poster can draw out his
conversation opening post, and engage in rational discourse through factual reasoning.We reasoned
that a balanced perspective provided for the initial post may help to set the tone of conversation
and lead to depolarization.
3.5.3 Ideal role taking. Habermasian thinking on political participation highlights considered
judgment as part of a decision-making [39, 110]. Different arguments should be evaluated when
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141:10 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
considering ones’ own position on the issues. One aspect of this process relates to acknowledging
that people may have valid reasons to disagree with a position–which is suggested to lead to
approval of those alternative positions [115, 127]. First step in this process is to acknowledge that
opinion differences exists.
This design draws on the these ideas (see Figure 1c). We implemented this by recommending
alternative news sources through a social contact, or, through social recommendation. We believe
that by connecting people to others design could direct people to consider reasons why others
think in such way, thus promoting ideal role taking. Furthermore, having a social contact reduces
the risk that alternative perspectives are not considered, or that someone is alienated and of lesser
social value [82]. We envision that in this type of interface, people would be more engaged with
alternative sources to understand perspectives other people may have.
3.5.4 Discussion driven recommendations. Extending from the ideal role taking, the ultimate
goal of deliberation is to help participants to engage in polite and well-justified discussions on
public issues [54]. Habermas’ core argument [54] was that such spaces for encounters have become
increasingly rare in the modern era. However, after the rise of the Internet, several scholars have
suggested that the online spaces can serve for such purposes (e.g., [23]), but concerns of selective
exposure and polarization have challenged these hopes (e.g., [7]). Based on Habermas’ ideals,
discussions should include the plurality of perspectives on the topic, to allow people engage them
together and explore them. The benefits emerge not only from seeing the plurality of ideas: people
are more likely to accept alternative perspectives and decisions if they see how those are rationalized
[127].
This design draws its motivation from these aspects. By introducing people to other, diverse,
discussions (Figure 1d), we are promoting engagement in discussions with other people who hold
diverse perspectives from different publics. Furthermore, this idea extends ideal role taking, as now
people are shown opinions of other people as well. We envision that these type of interfaces may
support more discursive political participation on social media platforms.
4 FINDINGS
While the aim of our designs was to decrease political polarization, based on informant accounts,
our participants highlighted both the positive and negative implications of designing for polariza-
tion. That is, they highlighted an inherent dilemma: by designing for depolarization, the designs
themselves might create or spotlight polarization. As described by FI-P1:
...this [cultural probe] is based on escalation [of polarization]
Similarly, US-C3 stated:
I feel that [this design] would split [readers] more because it is giving very liberal and
very conservative links on the bottom.
Furthermore, informants highlighted that these interventions will only function if users are to
some degree open-minded an amenable to alternative opinions. As FI-P4 explained:
people who have made their mind already and not open to change it.
Thus, informants suggested that those kinds of users may not benefit from the alternative designs
proposed. Similarly, for our informants who were part of the expert citizen category, they described
how they may not benefit from such interfaces as they are already actively seeking information
and alternative perspectives. However, self-evaluations tend to be more positive than actualized
behavior.
What these accounts highlight is that designing for depolarization is seemingly contradictory. To
decrease polarization, design approaches may need to make polarization and polarizing opinions
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:11
more visible. In the sections that follow, we describe informant interpretations of our designs as
manifest in Habermas’ values. Specifically, we report our findings as related to how design can
serve to decrease polarization, and where design can increase polarization. Across both primary
sections of the Findings, we also elaborate on cross-cultural issues (RQ3) related to designing to
decrease polarization, and how cross cultural issues can create added complexity.
RQ1: Decreasing Polarization Through Design
In this section, we highlight how design can serve to decrease polarization, namely through: nudging
users towards more informed public sphere discourse, and social recommendation as promoting
ideal role taking. We then highlight cross cultural differences in thinking about designing for
depolarization
4.1 Nudging towards informed public sphere discourse
Informants highlighted that all four interfaces (Figure 1), including the Common Design Agenda
interface, provide people more information which they felt could lead to more informed and rational
discourse on a range of topics. As US-P2 states, even the Common Design Agenda (Figure 1a)
interface was designed in a way such that it could support political discussion and potentially
increase civility of the discussion:
[- -] it could help discussions if people were not just yelling at each other but they were
able to see the other perspectives and take a step back and do a calmer discussion and
not, like my opinion is the only way because they have read the other perspective. So
they kind of like can see where I am coming from
Importantly, our designs were developed in a way such that they were proactively providing
users with additional information that could guide their interactions in the public sphere (Figure 1b).
In this interface, we transferred the logic so that it targets the poster when they are writing these
answers. Indeed, our interviewers observed this aspect: the design was seen as a method to nudge
people to consider posting content and consider the implications of sharing it:
I like this interface. [What makes it likable?] It provides people with information when
they are making the decision [to share something]. (FI-C5)
This [interface] has a different premise. When the user is doing something, then we
engage with that mental state by showing that there might be also something else
relevant here. It may be that user is slightly more open for alternative perspectives. [-
-] I believe that this intervention would be more effective. (FI-P2)
Without a prompt by us, some interviewees referenced strong feelings such as anger or provo-
cation when answering our questions. They believed that the designs, in being more proactive,
allowed for “cooldown” time to reconsider their interactions in the public sphere. As such, these
findings illustrate that proactive design can lead to a more informed public in service of promoting
rational discourse and information seeking behavior:
This [interface] decreases sharing when you are provoked about a news story. [- -] [It
shows that] there are many alternative truths for this. (FI-C1)
I think it would cause people to take a beat before they post something. [- -] showing
them the other alternative might stop rage posting [- -] (US-C2)
These findings suggest that design can serve to depolarize the public sphere, as the engagement
with diverse opinions and perspectives can serve to enable people to engage in more rational
discourse.
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141:12 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
4.2 Social recommendation as promoting ideal role taking
Our designs also utilized social recommendation techniques to support ideal role taking, and thus,
lead to better political discussion (Figures 1c and 1d) We observed both of these being motivated
in our interviews. Interviewees envisioned two alternative manners these methods could lead to
depolarization and improve political discussion, and these methods differed across cultural contexts
(RQ3).
From the perspective of our Finnish informants, people highlighted the importance of under-
standing other people’s perspectives. As previously described, Finland is a homogeneous country,
and so the design of systems was directed more towards understanding the nuances and differences
in people’s political perspectives.
Interviewees highlighted that seeing another person, socially close to you, to share news sto-
ries with an alternative perspective increases the motivation to open any given link. Interviewees
suggested that they would like to understand the perspectives being disseminated by others, and un-
derstand his/her motivations for such practice. Therefore, they suggest that our interfaces promote
ideal role in political discussions. As explained by our interviewees:
I think that this dynamics works better. [- -] There is a trustworthy person – it might be
that wife’s friend directs my thinking here – [- -] why they have shared this particular
news story. So these friends guide you to think more that why someone else might
be thinking in this manner. Therefore, it would lead you to open me up for novel
perspectives. (FI-P1)
I think it would improve [political communication] as this type of personal contact,
even if indirect [- -] I think this filters out some of far-outs from the conversation.
(FI-C4)
Second, informants outlined the need for social recommendations, in particular with Figure 1c,
highlighted that social recommendations also allow participants seek expertise or engage in further
political discussions. In particular, it was considered that seeing people active on a particular topic
may allow them to develop common ground which could trigger additional political discussions
across diverse publics:
[A link shared might also be from] opposite minded folks. They could be sharing the
same article with a completely different twist. So now you are seeing people who have
read the same article as you [and] have seen the same facts as you and now you can
engage in that political discussion. (US-C1)
I think that people would click through on that by seeing other friends and what they
are commenting on regarding a similar thing. It would encourage you to then insert
yourself into a political discussion that you might not have otherwise. (US-P1)
Both of these motivations demonstrate that there could be value in social recommendations
for depolarization. Both mechanism identified by our interviewees lead to increased motivation
to understand other people’s perspectives of politics, even if they are from potentially polarizing
perspectives. These could even lead to compassion emerging in social spaces – which would lead
to more civil discussions. As described by US-C4:
I think that people would be more apt to find out about how individuals in their network
feel and think toward political issues and people might actually behave since their
comments may affect friends or loved ones.
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:13
4.3 Cross-cultural differences when designing for depolarization: “One size does not
fit all”
As seen in the interviews, Finnish informants and U.S. informants had some differences in their po-
litical motivations.1 Whereas Finnish informants wished to understand other people’s perspectives
through ideal role taking (for example, FI-P1 above), our U.S. informants felt that designs should
promote connection with people outside of one’s own social circle (for example, US-C1 above).
That is, they wished to be connected with new persons to engage in political discussion. Given
that the United States is ideologically and socially diverse [34], and that homophily drives people
to develop their friend networks with similar people [7, 78], US participants wished to diversify
their perspectives through ideal role taking with diverse audiences. However, in Finland the same
behavior seemed to lead instead further reflection, potentially linked to perceived shared values
[18]. Underlying may also be national norms about political self-expression.
The difference across these countries shows us a potential a cross-cultural difference related to
depolarization as drew upon the unique characteristics of their political systems when thinking
about the designs of technology for depolarization (RQ3). Thus, the observed differences highlight
that one size does not fit all when considering designs for depolarization. We have proposed various
factors which may contribute to this outcome, ranging from political climate to deeper national
behaviours. Thus, cultural norms and values may play a part in reactions how to decrease political
polarization.
RQ2: Challenges of Decreasing Polarization
In the sections that follow, we explore what problems may emerge when seeking to decrease
polarization through digital systems, namely through being outsmarted by the interface, the
interface as a stigmatizing force, and engagements with authority. We then highlight cross cultural
challenges in thinking about designing for depolarization.
4.4 Being ’outsmarted’ by the interface
Previously, we described how some informants saw the potential for our proactive designs to aid
depolarization efforts, but some also noted potential, unintended, negative possibilities. While
proactive design could lead to more nuanced and rationalized opinions, others suggested that these
designs could also lead users to be more censored with respect to self-presentation. That is, they
often anthropomorphized our designs, or gave our interfaces human qualities, suggesting that the
system may also be trying to “outsmart” the poster:
[- -] when you post something it [the interface asks] are you sure you want to post it?
That’s because that is going to affect your image on Facebook. [- -] It is like well I do
not want my grandma to see this so I do not [post it]. (US-C1)
I think people would be peeved. They would be annoyed that they were intentionally
sharing an article [and] for whatever reason and Facebook asked them to reconsider
sharing. I think makes people feel like their intelligence is being questioned or their
political competency is being questioned. (US-P1)
1We stress that with a small sample, the cross-cultural differences observed are illustratory. As we elaborate in Limitations,
we believe that a more quantitative research approach is required for clearly establishing such cultural differences. This
said, the results demonstrate the potential existence of cross-cultural differences, which we discuss more extensively in the
Discussion.
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141:14 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
4.5 The interface as a stigmatizing force
Furthermore, just like in the previous design, these designs also presented challenges for depo-
larization. These concerns were raised in the interviews in both nations and both by citizen and
political experts (RQ3). That is, across both cultural contexts, our participants challenged how well
the design intervention can support ideal role taking and discussion.
First, the success of these social interventions depend on the diversity of one’s friendship
networks. FI-P4 articulates this statement well by suggesting that:
...if your circle of friendships is diverse enough to present versatile perspectives, then
[social recommendations] may work well.
Habermasian perspective argues that ideal role taking should occur even if the arguments are
not made by ones friends. In these designs with idea of deeper social context was to “lure out” ideal
position taking through giving identity to the Other. We will build upon this in the discussion,
arguing that in short path lengths in social networks [4] created through weak ties [50], establishing
a suitable social context can be achieved for most users.
Second, the challenges which emerge from potential stigmatization due to expressing political
values:
...[social recommendation] would make them assume that whoever shared the [item]
shares the same political beliefs suggested through the Fox News article, which could
be wrong. (US-P1)
Finally, when working on such a political domain, any social recommendation must be delicate
to avoid potential anti-social outcomes and supporting existing conflicts between the groups. As
elaborated by US-P2, seeing alternative sources proposed by people may create:
...more animosity towards those people.
These insights show concerns about expressing political opinions in public spaces like Facebook.
In particular, these insights highlight the importance to design spaces which also guide participants
towards civility in online discussion to relieve such concerns. Therefore, we conclude that while
social recommendation techniques demonstrate promise to lead to depolarization, there are many
concerns which must be extensively balanced before these mechanism are adopted by users.
4.6 Engagement with “authority”
The final observation does not tie to Habermasian ideals to develop interfaces. Rather, it relates to
Habermas’ concerns on the structure of public spaces for political participation.
For example, participants explored how different biases or manipulations could be generated
through direct content recommendation. They used the term algorithm to discuss about the power
which is incorporated in the implementation of any recommendation system. As described by
FI-C4:
...these things presented by [recommendation system], well, I think they are directing
[the public opinion].
Similarly, US-C3 stated that it is important to
...give the user flexibility to just post whatever they want without any influencing [- -].
In particular these concerns were present in the choice of content to recommend. Its partisan
distribution required careful considerations to show balance, thus urging US-C3 to suggest that:
...create a fourth or fifth in the middle that would be neutral and then on the left it
would be too liberal and then on the right too conservative. It doesn’t matter what
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:15
order, but just as long as there’s an equal number of liberal, conservative and then a
neutral.
We had intentionally designed our interfaces such that they engaged users with strongly biased
news sources, which triggered some participants to argue they do not want to see sites like that.
Also it was questioned if interfaces should only recommend content like news stories, or if they
could include more background information on the phenomena to increase overall knowledge on
the topic, or for example, government documents.
4.7 Cross-cultural differences as creating new design challenges for decreasing
depolarization
Through a deeper analysis of our findings, we find that cross-cultural differences may exist (RQ3),
which can create further challenges when thinking about how to best design for depolarization. In
the U.S. context, we observed how the underlying political values embedded within interfaces can
backfire–that is, informants described how they believed these interfaces had political intentions
and could subsequently marginalize their perspectives and values. For example, our U.S.-based
informants described how they felt as though they were being“outsmarted” (Section 4.4) by the
interface. In the Finnish context, however, informants were more open to a value-laden design
approach. Across cultural contexts, we observed that in informants both countries were concerned
with the algorithmic power invested by corporations developing these interventions.
One possible explanation for this is that the U.S. is politically and ideologically diverse [43], and
the media ecosystem in which people are embedded is not value neutral (i.e. CNN versus Fox News)
[67]. As such, people have been thinking deeply about how they engage with authority, who is
behind the information ecosystems that disseminate information, and have developed a distrust
towards systems that do not align with their values [49, 55]. Finland, unlike the U.S., has been
far more ideologically and politically similar, and is also a society marked by high societal trust
[10, 18].
This indicates that future work must be done to better understand how to make value-driven
interfaces more acceptable across cultural and country contexts, as opposed to being viewed as
complicit in escalating political polarization through underlying political agendas, as elaborated by
our informants.
5 DISCUSSION
Design is complex as it requires careful assessment to ensure that it is having the desired effect
and not countering design intent. In this study, our design probes were focused on depolarization,
but after careful analysis, we also found that it could serve to polarize. Furthermore, we observed
potential cross-national differences in terms of reactions to our proactive and social recommendation
design probes. Thus, there does not exist a one size fits all approach that works for all people around
the world. The design, and use of artifacts (i.e. prototypes), also demonstrated the ability of this
type of approach to shed to on uncover people’s values related to how they think about political
discourse. This could help designers to depolarize platforms by (1) re-purposing context collapse
and (2) making the socio-technical systems transparent. Lastly, we reflect on ways in which design
can be used as a tool for social science inquiry.
5.1 Re-purposing context collapse for depolarization
Informants highlighted several benefits which emerged from social media content recommendation,
such as increased motivation to read alternative perspectives, which supports media literacy, and
wanting to discuss associated political events with other people (Section 4.2). However, informants
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141:16 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
also pointed out in order to follow-up, one must have diverse friendship pool, something they
acknowledged might not be achievable, or depolarization effects would be diminished or remain
unchanged. This concern is surprising, as it counters extensive research on context collapse.
Context collapse refers to impression management in an online environment where a user may
have many people from various social circles following them on the same platform, and the ways
they may need to manage their activities, or behavior, given a broader audience than they may
experience at social events in real life where social groups are more separated. [75, 76]. As elaborated
by Goffman [48], we often manage our self-concept by drawing on the rules and norms present
in our social environments. In the context of social media platforms, context collapse makes it
difficult to manage impressions of ourselves given the range of people who are bound together in a
singular environment, coming from various social contexts (such as, elementary school classmates,
work colleagues, family and friends). Rather, as explored by Marwick et al. [75], social media users,
on platforms such as on Facebook and Twitter, tend to collapse multiple audiences together. There
have been various design implementation created to help people manage and segment people by
audience to whom content is shown (for example [69]). However, such designs carries the potential
to contribute to the creation of a public sphere(s) which are heterogeneous, and not diverse, if niche
target audience is created from a list of preexisting friends and contacts.
Instead, we suggest the potential for context collapse to also be used as a depolarizing force. The
social media followers of individuals, especially when also counting friends-of-friends, may be
diverse enough to show social content recommendations across the political spectrum. Previous
research highlights the prevalence of weak ties in social networks [50] and how the average path
length connecting any Facebook users is less than four [4]. This suggests that a large social media
platform might be able help expose users to to people with different perspectives, and potentially
different political opinions, given the large number of weak ties in a user’s network. However,
more diverse political engagement on social media creates challenges such as stigmatization and
anti-social outcomes, as also suggested by our informants. These types of issues are not new as we
have seen how social media platforms have inadvertently exposed personal information such as a
user’s sexual orientation [64].
Given the various issues that might arise from different designs, the benefits, and challenges,
of context collapse, especially as it relates to political deliberation, must be carefully considered.
For example, in cases that include sensitive or stigmatized disclosure (e.g. talking about sexual
assault) interfaces should promote selective exposure to close friends only. For cases that involve
political deliberation, context collapse shoukd be used to promote diverse interactions, as a means
of enforcing diversity in political interactions. Doing so would help messages to achieve a depo-
larization effect as they spread across the various social contexts one has in their social networks.
Furthermore, careful consideration should be paid to developing more private spaces for political
participation as they do not benefit from increased social contexts associated with context collapse.
5.2 Making socio-technical systems more transparent
Our informants were skeptical with respect to the power of social media platforms (see Sections 4.4
and 4.6) and responses echoed discourse from critical algorithm studies in regards to power and
agency [47, 66, 91]. However, we also heard that the informants were concerned with political
expression, in addition to the lack of algorithmic transparency. Thus, our informants extend
Habermas’ [54] critique of a public sphere shift towards a more centralized and controlled space,
which effects political discussion.2
2 Most academic debate on online spaces and Habermas’ work has focused on the problems of rational and civic discourse.
According to many studies, achieving an idealized public sphere challenging [among others, 24, 96], see also ‘Literature
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:17
Therefore, our research brings an additional dimension to the transparency and algorithmic
gatekeeping literature. Gillespie [47] discusses the interconnection between algorithms and rele-
vance and how there are calls to increase the transparency of algorithms [29]. These debates are
often focused on the replacement of traditional gatekeeping–where editorial (humans) select which
information is relevant and passed on to the public–to an algorithmic gatekeeping system on plat-
forms that makes decisions without that aid of humans [15, 123]. However, informants’ reactions
extended beyond issues of gatekeeping: they asked how our design probes might impact social
interaction with political discourse. This is an important observation, and insight, as scholarship
has highlighted how digital systems design is an act of power [124]. In regards to design and its
ability to specifically shape political engagement, informants were concerned with how our design
probes may negatively impact political expression and social interaction, which is extends beyond
the intent of merely designing for depolarization. Thus, returning to Habermas: participants were
concerned with how design shapes the public sphere and how the different probes in the study
impacted interaction and were less concerned about content (gatekeeping).
We believe that our suggestions, such as relying on trusted recommendations from friends, are
more transparent than targeted advertisements that may lack proper attribution or disclosure of
the funding source. Therefore, substituting less transparent authoritative content recommenda-
tions with our designs that are more reliant on recommendation from trusted sources withing
our networks, could aid transparency and efforts to depolarize public discussion. Based on the
reactions from our informants, interfaces that involve politic information, and discourse, should be
transparent, not only in terms of content, but in how they may impact political engagement and
discourse, as well. Therefore, if the recommendations we suggest are implemented, they need to be
explicitly acknowledged.
We understand that transparency makes companies vulnerable to competitive pressures, as
well backlash and critique. But without visibility into how platforms work and are intended to
shape interactions, users, regulators, and researchers will not be able to monitor and evaluate
corporate and unintended design influence. The social media industry would benefit from greater
collaboration and deeper engagement with corporate social responsibility in order to ensure a
healthy media environment and political discourse [52].
Calling for transparency requires transparency on our part as well. We acknowledge that our
research as well has a clear value-driven approach. The Habermasian approach is one of many
available to support online political discussions [25]. However, its normative framework its suit-
ability for empirical cases like this is still being debated. However, the positive empirical outcomes
in this study suggest that Habermas’ ideals can be used to design for topics like polarization, and
that this approach may be used for value-driven design.
5.3 Localization of political interfaces?
Our research observed two clear differences between Finnish and U.S.-based informants. First,
while Finnish informants sought to understand others’ perspectives, in the United States the same
interface was seen as a tool to find new people to engage in political discussions and to network
(Section 4.3. Second, the attempts to intervene proactively were seen harmful in United States
while liked in Finland (Section 4.7. However, these findings call for further investigations and
reconsideration on interfaces which support in political engagement and discussions.
review.” Our work instead focuses on the infrastructuring of the public discussion, critical to the outcomes of participation
[38].
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141:18 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
As technologies are not neutral [92, 124], technologies for political engagement are obviously
non-neutral as well (see previous subsection). When developed to a particular national and socio-
cultural context, they may present a national habitus. The same habitus is present when the
interface is used in other national and socio-cultural contexts. For example, the work on mitigating
political polarization is mostly based on research conducted in the United States. One research
area has been connecting the two parties in a highly partisan media environment, either by asking
people to read content from diverse sources or connect with people with opposite perspectives.
Therefore, it appeared that U.S. based informants saw opportunities in developing personal networks.
Same cultural probes lead to more consensus building and balancing one’s opinion with Finnish
informants. This can be related to Nordic culture, where consensus is often sought for in political
decision making [56]. What type of reactions might emerge in an Asian collectivist culture, where
they stress communal wellbeing and harmony [118]?
Following from this discussion, we also need to revisit our discussion about theoretical perspec-
tives, which we started in the previous section. The interfaces were developed to drive a particular
normative agenda, in our case, Habermas influential work on public sphere. Articulated differently,
we used a German philosopher and sociologist with theory emerging from development of political
discussions in central Europe. His ideas might not fully respond to the needs from a different
historical context, like that of the United States.
So, these two observations together lead us to ask should there be localization of values and
norms as well, not only for texts and images? That is, if we accept our initial observations and
related discussion about values and their contextual: there cannot be a global single interface for
political participation and engagement. A softer version of this, that different organizations may
require value sensitivity in their information systems has been well perceived [61, 93]. However,
we seek to expand this thinking to a global scope. Our results indicate, interfaces for political
discussion must be considered in the light of national habitus and socio-cultural context.
In this work, we can only expose this issue. We do not yet have – partly due to lack of comparative
research on political interfaces – enough observations to make a strong argument for or against this
type of localization. Already now, researchers are explicating the need for non-Western, educated,
industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) in fields such as economics and human-computer
interaction, like interface design principles [116]. To achieve localization, there is a need for an
adaptive system that could change aspects like social matching criteria, content recommendation
algorithm and even affordances for self-expression based on participants’ socio-cultural background.
The first step in this process is to develop approaches to discuss about such localizations: beyond
language and writing direction, what aspects should be accounted for? How they could be expressed
in a machine-readable form?
5.4 Using artifacts for social science research
As we show, through these design probes, people were able to prompt and inform us about
values relevant to design practice. While speculative design, and even participatory design, often
use prototypes to, as described by Muller [84], have end users think about new technology “in
relation to applications they have not previously experienced,” in our study we used a method
inspired to understand and uncover people’s values relative to existing and familiar technologies.
A main difference compared with speculative, critical and adversarial approaches [3, 12, 13, 16, 30,
100, 108] is to focus on design probes which could be implemented already today. They did not
have exaggeration or adversarial components to indicate to participants that we consider them
“speculative.”
Through this method of inquiry, our interfaces prompted our interviewees to critically reflect on
the benefits and challenges in designing for depolarization as related to how they think about the
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(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization 141:19
design of existing socio-technical systems. As such, our findings followed ideas of provocative state-
ments used in social sciences and CSCW research previously [106, 121]. Instead of verbal statements,
we used manifestations of design directions. Each design was constructed using conceptual ideas
[111] and manifest them. As we in our findings and subsequent discussion, participants’ reflections
allow us both to challenge current design practice (context collapse) and address system-level
issues (companies as part of the public sphere). In this view, the use of artifacts for value driven
inquiry can allow designers to unearth interface level values, as well as broader, socio-political
values that surround technology use and design that might impact how people perceive and use
socio-technical systems.
While CSCW and HCI research is deeply engaged with social scientists, the output is often the
development of novel technologies and there have been calls from the academic community for more
social science research via research-through-design. For example, Lupton [74] suggests that design
sociology can “fruitfully incorporate the strengths and foci of design-oriented research approaches
while maintaining the critical and sociocultural emphasis of traditional sociological inquiry.” Most
importantly for social science theory, our research approach builds on low-fidelity prototypes (or
design probes) that articulated conceptual ideas [111], in our case Habermas’ influential work in
social sciences. The research approach builds on a core skill within the human-computer interaction
research: constructive approaches, where various approaches can be used to manifest novel ideas
[94]. Therefore, we believe that CSCW researchers may in the future collaborate with social
scientists, bringing their unique skills in design [which are missing from social sciences 74] to
support not only research of new technologies but also understanding fundamental questions about
our society. Through our brief engagement with cross-cultural analysis, this works suggests how
these may be formed and how cultural probes help to analyse national habits.
5.5 Limitations
We acknowledge that our study has several limitations. First, this study is based on a small number
of participants, whereby we utilized a snowball sampling technique. Second, we do not know how
representative our sample was of either Finland or the US, which is especially salient since we
focused on politically active social media users; the sampling strategy was strategic. Comparative
research tradition emphasize more quantitative approaches, and thus the cross-cultural findings
should be seen as indicatory. However, our participants came from different educational and
professional backgrounds. They are also diverse with respect to age, gender, and identity. In an
attempt to limit issues with snowball sampling, we found informants from multiple seeds, and
also recruited through a range of other avenues, including postings on social media, which helped
diversify our sample. Moreover, the goal of this research was not to generalize to the entire
population of either country under investigation; rather, our goal was to understand how design
could serve to limit polarization, whereby we were building on prior work in this important research
domain.
Second, this research project is not value-neutral. Habermas’ theory is normative, it discussess
about an ideal state, and our cultural probes are motivated through advancing an ideal state. For
example, Nelimarkka et al. [90] highlight that when working with such normative frameworks
in evaluation or design, authors should be careful on their articulation. Indeed, there are several
potential normative frameworks which we could have advocated [see elaboration from 90, who
also use Habermas’ framework]. Our drive to focus on supporting the public sphere in these
issues is driven by the benefits deliberation has been observed, even in highly polarized contexts
(see Section 2.1 for review). However, we believe that the observations we draw: challenges on
working with any value-driven environments across cultures and concerns related to socio-technical
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 3, No. CSCW, Article 141. Publication date: November 2019.
141:20 Matti Nelimarkka, Jean Philippe Rancy, Jennifer Grygiel, and Bryan Semaan
systems are not spesific to Habermas’ work, but more general to studies seeking to influence political
discussions.
Finally, our study does not speak on the performance of the proposed interfaces. Our results
are based on expert evaluations. To formally evaluate the success of these interfaces, one would
need an alternative research design. For example, survey experiments could be used towards this
direction. The interfaces could also be developed as functional for small groups [21]. However, as we
mentioned, the interfaces require advanced text analysis to explicate political positions. Therefore,
the empirical evaluation may require wizard-of-Oz technique, limiting study opportunities. The
empirical performance of these interfaces is a future research question.
6 CONCLUSIONS
This study investigated ways to (re)design for depolarization in the public sphere, which the research
community can further explore in future research. Our findings demonstrate the challenges to
mitigating polarization given how people are using the public sphere to interact, and the number
of multiple platforms that they are using. Users are becoming more aware of platform influence on
system design such as content recommendations, which signals the need for more transparency
regarding the design process. Through the use of design probes, we found that explicitly articulate
values and norms may help to increase transparency, but also provoke reactions that may encourage
entrenchment with polarized beliefs, and also introduce skepticism which could lead to increased
polarized assessment and thinking.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
MN thanks Academy of Finland and Kone Foundation for financial support. We thank anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments which have improved the paper.
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