Chapter 30: Exercises — Democracy, Polarization, and the Misinformation Crisis

Section A: Conceptual Understanding

Exercise 1: Habermas's Public Sphere

Habermas's concept of the public sphere describes an ideal realm of rational public discourse that has never been fully realized in practice.

a. Describe the three key features of Habermas's ideal public sphere (inclusivity, rationality, public orientation). b. Identify three specific ways in which contemporary digital media spaces diverge from this ideal. c. Identify three specific ways in which digital platforms might be said to advance or enable elements of the public sphere ideal. d. Write a 300-word evaluation: Is the concept of the public sphere still analytically useful despite these divergences from the ideal?

Exercise 2: Deliberative Democracy and Its Requirements

Deliberative democracy theorists argue that democratic legitimacy requires genuine deliberation, not merely preference aggregation.

a. List the four conditions for legitimate democratic deliberation articulated in the chapter (informed participation, mutual respect, public justification, reciprocity). b. For each condition, identify one specific way in which the contemporary American political environment fails to meet it. c. For each condition, identify one concrete intervention — in education, media, or policy — that might partially address the deficit.

Exercise 3: Measuring Polarization

a. Explain the difference between DW-NOMINATE scores and feeling thermometer data as measures of polarization. What is each measuring? What are its limitations? b. Based on the chapter, describe the trend in congressional ideological polarization since 1970. c. Explain why the finding that affective polarization has grown more than ideological polarization is important. What does this suggest about the nature of partisan conflict? d. Morris Fiorina argues that the American public has not deeply polarized ideologically. How would you evaluate this claim against the affective polarization evidence?

Exercise 4: The January 6th Case Study Analysis

Using the chapter's account of January 6, 2021, as a starting point, analyze this event as a case study in misinformation's democratic threat:

a. Identify the specific misinformation claims that motivated the event. b. Trace the production and amplification of these claims through different actors (political leaders, partisan media, social media). c. Apply the concept of deliberative democracy: which specific requirements of democratic legitimacy were violated? d. What does this case suggest about the conditions under which misinformation becomes directly dangerous to democratic institutions?

Exercise 5: The Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) Research

a. Describe the key methodology of Allcott and Gentzkow's study of fake news in the 2016 election. b. What were their main findings about the prevalence and partisan distribution of fake news? c. What were the study's most important limitations? d. What subsequent research has updated or challenged their findings? e. How should researchers and educators present findings about partisan asymmetry in politically diverse classrooms?

Section B: Comparative and Analytical

Exercise 6: Justified vs. Unjustified Distrust

For each of the following scenarios, assess whether the described distrust is primarily "justified" (reflecting accurate assessment of institutional failure) or "unjustified" (reflecting deliberate misinformation or motivated reasoning), and explain your reasoning:

a. African American communities expressing skepticism about vaccine safety recommendations based on the history of the Tuskegee syphilis study. b. Americans expressing distrust in Congress based on low approval ratings reflecting accurate perceptions of dysfunction. c. Voters believing that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, based on claims rejected by every court and election official that reviewed them. d. Distrust in mainstream media by audiences who have observed specific instances of significant reporting errors. e. Climate skepticism among Americans who have been exposed to decades of deliberate disinformation funded by fossil fuel interests.

Exercise 7: Post-Truth in Context

a. Define "post-truth" in your own words, drawing on the chapter's account. b. Identify three specific phenomena that the concept of "post-truth" is meant to capture. c. Articulate the strongest version of the argument that "post-truth" represents something genuinely new in the contemporary information environment. d. Articulate the strongest version of the counterargument — that "post-truth" overstates the novelty of current conditions. e. Take a position: Are we in a "post-truth" era in a meaningful sense? Defend your answer with specific evidence.

Exercise 8: Epistemic Injustice Analysis

Miranda Fricker identifies two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice (credibility deficits based on identity) and hermeneutical injustice (conceptual gaps that make experience inarticulable).

Apply these concepts to the following scenarios:

a. An older woman in an emergency room whose reports of severe chest pain are attributed to anxiety rather than cardiac symptoms. b. A whistleblower from a marginalized community whose documented reports of corporate malfeasance are dismissed by regulators. c. A person experiencing online harassment who cannot get platform moderators to recognize their experience as harassment because the harassment takes subtle forms that existing policies do not cover. d. A community whose air pollution concerns are dismissed by regulatory agencies as "not scientifically established" despite consistent community-level health observations.

For each case: Which type of epistemic injustice applies? What identity or structural factors produce it? What would remediation require?

Exercise 9: Populism Identification and Analysis

Below are five statements by politicians. For each, assess whether it exemplifies populist discourse, and if so, identify which elements of Mudde and Kaltwasser's definition it exhibits:

a. "The corrupt elites in Washington have sold out the working people of this country. Only we — the real Americans — can take our government back." b. "The data shows that our infrastructure investment program will generate 2.3 million jobs over five years." c. "The mainstream media is the enemy of the people. They lie and distort to protect their globalist allies." d. "We need to raise the corporate tax rate to fund investments in education and childcare, because working families have been left behind for too long." e. "I alone can fix it."

Exercise 10: Institutional Trust Comparative Analysis

Using the Gallup and Pew data described in the chapter (or your own research into current trust surveys):

a. Create a table showing trust levels in five institutions (Congress, media, science, courts, military) for Americans in 1975, 1995, and 2023. b. For each institution, provide one primary cause of its trust trajectory. c. Identify which institutions have maintained relatively higher trust levels. What do these institutions have in common? d. Write a 400-word analysis: What are the democratic consequences of the pattern of institutional trust you observe?

Section C: Applied Analysis

Exercise 11: Feeling Thermometer Experiment

This exercise invites you to reflect on your own affective polarization.

a. Rate your feelings toward each of the following groups on a 0–100 "feeling thermometer": Democrats, Republicans, Independents, conservatives, liberals, your own partisan group. b. Calculate the gap between your rating of your own group and the opposing group. Compare to national average gaps documented in the chapter. c. Reflect: What specific experiences, media consumption, or social environments might have shaped these ratings? d. Apply the "misperception" research finding: Do you believe you accurately perceive the policy positions of the opposing group? How might you check this?

Exercise 12: Misinformation and Democratic Function — Case Analysis

Select one of the following cases and conduct a detailed analysis (600–800 words) of how misinformation impacted democratic processes:

a. The circulation of false claims about COVID-19 vaccines during the 2020–2021 vaccination rollout b. The role of misinformation about immigration in Brexit and subsequent UK elections c. False claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the 2003 US invasion d. Misinformation about electoral fraud in the 2020 US presidential election

Your analysis should address: What specific claims circulated? Through what channels? Who produced them and who amplified them? What democratic processes were impacted and how? What, if anything, was done to counter the misinformation?

Exercise 13: Partisan Asymmetry Evidence Evaluation

You are asked to present the evidence on partisan asymmetry in misinformation to a politically mixed audience. Design a presentation strategy that:

a. Accurately presents the empirical evidence (Allcott & Gentzkow, Guess et al., Benkler et al.) b. Acknowledges the limitations and uncertainties in this research c. Anticipates and addresses the concerns of both left-leaning and right-leaning audience members d. Distinguishes empirical claims about asymmetry from normative claims about partisan responsibility e. Maintains intellectual honesty without producing defensiveness that would prevent learning

Write a 500-word "presentation strategy" document.

Exercise 14: Public Sphere in Digital Spaces

Choose one specific digital platform (Twitter/X, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok) and conduct an analysis of whether and how it functions as a "public sphere" in Habermas's sense.

a. Describe the platform's affordances: What kinds of communication does it enable and constrain? b. For each of Habermas's three criteria (inclusivity, rationality, public orientation), assess how the platform performs. c. What specific design features of the platform promote or undermine each criterion? d. What changes to platform design or governance might make it more closely approximate a deliberative public sphere?

Write your analysis as a 600-word essay.

Exercise 15: Epistemic Injustice and Misinformation Policy

The chapter argues that Fricker's epistemic injustice framework has implications for how misinformation researchers and policymakers approach the populations they study.

a. Identify a specific population whose skepticism of a dominant epistemic institution (government, media, science) might be partly epistemically rational given their historical experience. b. Describe the specific historical experiences that might ground this skepticism. c. Explain how this historical skepticism might make the population more vulnerable to deliberate disinformation that exploits the skepticism. d. Propose a communication strategy that acknowledges the justified elements of skepticism while building the trust needed for accurate information uptake.

Section D: Policy and Reform

Exercise 16: Journalism Reform Proposal

Design a policy proposal for sustaining quality local journalism in the United States. Your proposal should address:

a. The problem to be solved (news deserts, ownership concentration, funding collapse) b. Proposed solutions (funding mechanisms, ownership regulations, platform accountability) c. Potential objections to each proposed solution (First Amendment concerns, perverse incentives, political capture) d. Evidence from other countries that have addressed similar problems (e.g., UK, Canada, Nordic countries) e. The democratic rationale for treating quality journalism as a public good

Limit: 700 words.

Exercise 17: Civic Education Reform Design

Design a civic education curriculum component (for any grade level) that directly addresses the challenge of deliberative democracy in a polarized environment. Your design should:

a. Include learning objectives tied to deliberative democracy's epistemic requirements b. Use structured controversy or deliberative discussion methodologies c. Address the specific challenge of teaching students to engage respectfully with those who hold strongly different political views d. Include an assessment strategy that measures genuine deliberative capacity, not just agreement with particular views e. Explicitly address the risk of teacher bias in politically contentious discussions

Exercise 18: Trust Restoration Strategy

A government health agency has suffered a trust crisis due to inconsistent messaging during a public health emergency. You have been hired as a communication consultant. Design a 90-day trust restoration strategy that:

a. Begins with an honest assessment of what went wrong b. Distinguishes justified from unjustified elements of the trust deficit c. Proposes concrete transparency measures (what information to proactively release) d. Addresses the specific concerns of skeptical communities e. Sets realistic expectations for trust restoration timelines f. Avoids the common mistake of treating trust restoration as a communication problem rather than a performance problem

Exercise 19: Platform Design for Democratic Epistemics

You have been appointed to a hypothetical "Digital Democracy Advisory Board." Design a set of platform design recommendations for a major social media company aimed at supporting the epistemic requirements of democracy. Your recommendations should address:

a. What the epistemic requirements of democracy are (drawing on Section 30.1) b. How current platform designs undermine these requirements c. Specific algorithmic, interface, and policy changes you recommend d. Trade-offs your recommendations involve (free expression, engagement metrics, revenue) e. How compliance with your recommendations would be measured and enforced

Exercise 20: Populism and Media Literacy Response

Populist politicians' anti-expert and anti-media rhetoric creates specific challenges for media literacy educators working with communities receptive to populist appeals.

a. Describe the specific framing that makes expert and media institutions illegitimate in populist discourse. b. Why might conventional media literacy approaches ("here's how to evaluate sources") be ineffective with audiences deeply receptive to populist framing? c. Design an alternative approach to media literacy that acknowledges legitimate grievances against expert and media institutions while building critical evaluation capacity. d. How would you assess whether your approach was working?

Section E: Synthesis and Research

Exercise 21: Affective Polarization Intervention Research

Design a research study to evaluate an intervention aimed at reducing affective polarization in the United States. Specify:

a. The specific aspect of affective polarization being targeted (e.g., misperceptions of the opposing party, cross-partisan animosity in everyday interactions) b. The intervention (e.g., correcting misperceptions, facilitating cross-partisan contact, structured deliberation) c. Research design (RCT if possible, or best feasible quasi-experimental design) d. Outcome measures (feeling thermometers, behavioral measures, misperception tests) e. Anticipated effect sizes (drawing on published research in this area) f. Limitations and ethical considerations

Exercise 22: Post-Truth Literature Review

Conduct a short literature review (800 words) on the "post-truth" concept in academic political science and communication studies. Your review should:

a. Trace the genealogy of the concept b. Identify the key scholarly works that have developed or critiqued the concept c. Summarize the main disagreements in the literature d. Arrive at your own assessment of the concept's analytical utility

Exercise 23: Deliberative Democracy in Practice

Research one of the following deliberative democracy initiatives and write a 500-word evaluation of its success in meeting deliberative democracy's epistemic requirements:

a. Citizens' Assemblies in Ireland (on same-sex marriage and abortion) b. America in One Room (James Fishkin's deliberative poll on immigration and other issues) c. The French Citizens' Convention on Climate (Convention citoyenne pour le climat) d. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform

Your evaluation should: describe the process, assess its deliberative quality, discuss outcomes, and identify limitations.

Exercise 24: Comparative Institutional Trust Analysis

Compare institutional trust trends in two countries: the United States and one other country of your choice (options include Germany, UK, France, Brazil, India, Japan). For each:

a. Document trust in at least four comparable institutions using survey data b. Identify key events that shaped the trust trajectory c. Compare the structural features of each country's information environment that might explain differences d. Draw lessons from the comparison for understanding what drives institutional trust

Exercise 25: Synthesis Essay

Drawing on the full content of this chapter, write a 1,200-word essay responding to:

"The misinformation crisis is fundamentally a democratic crisis. Fixing the information environment requires fixing democracy, and fixing democracy requires addressing the information environment. Is this vicious circle escapable?"

Your essay should: - Articulate the specific connections between misinformation and democratic dysfunction - Address the causal complexity (is misinformation a cause or a symptom of polarization?) - Evaluate at least three specific reform proposals - Engage with the most important scholarly perspectives covered in this chapter - Arrive at a considered, evidence-grounded conclusion