PROJECT
ENCODE: Unveiling emotional dimensions of politics to foster European democracy
A PROJECT FOR: European Union (Horizon Europe program)
BRIEF
The Challenge
Modern democracies are increasingly challenged by "affective polarization" where emotional divides drive deeper societal and political rifts. Disinformation on social media exacerbates these divides by tapping into emotional triggers, further eroding trust and constructive dialogue. Traditional responses, which focus on factual correction and rational debate, often fail to address the emotional underpinnings of political behavior, leaving a critical gap in efforts to counteract polarization.
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The ENCODE project aims to bridge this gap by introducing the concept of "affective pluralisation." This approach seeks to harmonize diverse emotional perspectives, creating inclusive political narratives that reduce polarization and enhance democratic resilience. Ultimately, ENCODE aims to transform emotions into a unifying force that strengthens democracy, with findings and strategies widely disseminated across the EU.
FOCUS
The Approach
To achieve this, ENCODE combines rigorous empirical research with a strong emphasis on citizen involvement. The project will conduct a comprehensive study across six geographically diverse European countries (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Denmark, North Macedonia, Poland), using a mix of methodologies including emotion analysis of social media, understanding citizen emotional responses using biometrics and qualitative research, experimentally validated survey questions to understand emotions and cognitive and learning effects. This triangulated research approach ensures a deep and accurate understanding of how emotions influence political behaviour across different cultural and political contexts.
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The insights gained from this research will be translated into practical tools and strategies aimed at fostering democratic resilience. ENCODE will actively involve citizens in innovation labs, where they will co-design emotional narratives that reflect their experiences and aspirations. These narratives will then be validated by expert panels and used to inform policy-making strategies. The project’s bottom-up approach ensures that these strategies are both grounded in the emotional realities of citizens and capable of fostering trust and cohesion in democratic governance.
CONCLUSIONS
The envisioned result
The ENCODE project aims to produce several key outcomes that will contribute to both academic understanding and practical policy-making:
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New Conceptual Frameworks: Establish "affective pluralisation" as a central concept in political science, offering an alternative to the divisive nature of affective polarization.
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Practical Tools: Develop resources such as a catalogue of best practices for combating disinformation, emotional gap maps that highlight emotional divides, validated survey questions for future research, and democratic resilience heatmaps that identify areas of strength and vulnerability.
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Citizen-Driven Narratives: Co-create emotional narratives with citizens through innovation labs, ensuring that policy strategies are rooted in the emotional realities of the public and are capable of fostering trust in governance.
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Policy Strategies: Produce actionable policy recommendations and roadmaps, informed by the co-designed narratives and validated by expert panels, to promote democratic resilience and reduce polarization.
As experts in social media analysis and Large Language Models (LLMs), PredictBy contributes to the following tasks:
PREDICTBY
Our role
We analyse the relationship between emotions and political narratives by examining extensive social media discussions using LLMs. This analysis will help understand the impact of emotions on European political and cultural spaces, and the broader issues of societal cohesion.
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