Article
This working paper aims to articulate an interdisciplinary research and practice area focused around bridging systems.
Divisiveness appears to be increasing in much of the world. This can lead to concern about political violence and a decreasing capacity to collaboratively address large-scale societal challenges. In this working paper we aim to articulate an interdisciplinary research and practice area focused around what we call bridging systems. These are systems which increase mutual understanding and trust across divides, creating space for productive conflict, deliberation, or cooperation.
We give examples of bridging systems across three domains: recommender systems on social media, software for conducting civic forums, and human-facilitated group deliberation. We argue that these examples can be more meaningfully understood as processes for attention-allocation (as opposed to “content distribution” or “amplification”). Further, we develop a corresponding framework to explore similarities – and opportunities for bridging – across these seemingly disparate domains. In particular, we focus on the potential of bridging-based ranking to bring the benefits of offline bridging into spaces which are already governed by algorithms. Throughout, we suggest research directions that could improve our capacity to incorporate bridging into a world increasingly mediated by algorithms and artificial intelligence.
Additional Resource
The bipartisan Utah Digital Choice Act aims to reform the social media ecosystem by giving users more choice and ownership over their personal data, while encouraging platform innovation and competition.
Policy Brief
The GETTING-Plurality Research Network submitted a public comment on the Development of a 2025 National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan.
Policy Brief
The GETTING-Plurality Research Network submitted a comment to Representative Trahan’s Request for Information to modernize the Privacy Act of 1974.
