#media-amplification

#media-amplification

Richard Pearson is visiting Surrey to close down his late father's home and settle his affairs and, everywhere he looks, the flag of St George is flying from suburban gardens and filling stations and branch post offices. How nice, he thinks, how festive. Soon he learns the truth. So runs the opening not of a recent piece of journalism, but a novel by JG Ballard, Kingdom Come, which despite being almost 20 years old anticipates today's Britain with eerie precision.

Graduate teaching assistant Mel Curth, who graded the paper, wrote that the zero was based on academic criteria, not retaliation for the student's religious views. Curth wrote that the essay "does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive." Curth also noted that portraying a marginalized group as "demonic" is "highly offensive," and urged the student to use empirical sources rather than doctrinal statements when critiquing course material.

Research on polarization indicates that when people in one group talk to themselves a lot, their positions on issues become more extreme. 1 On the other hand, when people with opposing views speak in person with each other, their views tend to become less extreme. 2 Studies of individual and mass shooters have found that they are often on social media before committing their murders and that encouraging language is often exchanged among them. 3