Drivers of Digital Discord: How News Media and Social Media Drive Online Discourse — and Pathways for Change

Judson et al.'s mixed-methods analysis maps the joint production of toxic online discourse by news media framing choices and platform algorithmic amplification — distinguishing healthy democratic contestation from epistemic harm, and identifying the structural drivers of discord beyond individual bad actors. The research design integrates content analysis, platform data, and qualitative expert interviews to produce a more comprehensive picture of how the information supply chain jointly produces discourse than is possible from single-method approaches.

The distinction between healthy contestation and epistemic harm is analytically important and practically difficult: democratic discourse requires the ability to contest facts, challenge institutions, and express anger — all of which can also be weaponised as disinformation vectors. The report's framework for making this distinction, grounded in empirical analysis of discourse patterns rather than normative preference, is one of the more rigorous available attempts to operationalise the difference. For practitioners designing content moderation frameworks and for researchers studying the information environment, this is a methodologically strong contribution.