Relentless Division: Handling Conversations in a Time of Disunity
Right now, we are in a very difficult time. Even outside of the pandemic, there is much political unrest within the United States. As social media becomes a more popular form of public communication, we can see that people with vastly different opinions often clash on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and even TikTok. When celebrities and politicians have an online interaction, it can result in either public consensus or widespread backlash. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ted Cruz had an exchange on Twitter where Cruz attempted to extend bipartisanship toward AOC during the Robinhood-GameStop Stock Situation. Instead of returning the sentiment, AOC responded and reminded Cruz that he played a role in the insurrection at the Capitol. She clarified that she would work with other GOP members on the situation, just not with Cruz. How does discourse like this affect the American perspective on the current state of political affairs?
A question like this would require an interpretive approach, which is “the linguistic work of assigning meaning or value to communicative texts [and] assumes that multiple meanings or truths are possible” (Griffin 15). This is nearly the opposite of the objective approach, which is “the assumption that truth is singular and is accessible through unbiased sensory observation [and is] committed to uncovering cause-and-effect relationships (Griffin 14). Both of these approaches require research, but how they should be researched is vastly different. Since an interpretive researcher is not concerned with uncovering a singular truth, it requires qualitative research. Qualitative research is concerned with the content of interactions or scenarios, which requires analysis of words. However, for an objective researcher, a singular conclusion is required for effective research and therefore must be quantitative. This “appeal to numbers” satisfies the desire of the objective researcher to reach a conclusion based on hard data (28).
The exchange between AOC and Cruz requires an interpretive approach to research for a few reasons. The exchange itself requires analysis; there are no numbers that can be calculated in this text. Our research question is concerned with the impact of this discourse. Depending on the political beliefs of various Americans, what the impact of the tweets looks like in both the short and long term can vary. This speaks to the interpretive researcher’s perspective on truth – since truth is relative, there can be multiple responses to AOC and Cruz’s tweets. When AOC tweeted that Robinhood’s block of trading GameStop stock was “unacceptable,” Cruz quoted her tweet and said, “Fully agree.” Many people responded to the exchange with confusion with a side of excitement when they saw two vastly different politicians agreeing on the same issue. AOC and many others did not share in the positivity. AOC herself told Cruz that she would rather work with Congress members who are not “trying to get her killed” and told Cruz to resign. For those who support Cruz, they shared that they are shocked that AOC said something that “made sense,” and when she responded strongly, they were extremely critical of her. For AOC, Cruz, Republicans, Democrats, and everyone around or in-between, this exchange had very different meanings. We can see through the replies to both Tweets as well as the quote Tweets how much variability there is in truth.