2024-2025  First spark of wondering about building intentionally for a world where politics is substrate

Under Mentorship of Dr. Ani Sarkissian  ·  1st place selection for University Research Symposium.

The current polarization of American politics between the Left and Right has drastically increased over the past three decades. Media domination of political discussions has led to the mass spread of misinformation. Fact-checking platforms, unbiased social media postings, and even legacy media reports are viewed increasingly with suspicion by a public that gets its news from partisan outlets. Partisanship is driving voting behavior even when research has proven that people who identify as Democrat or Republican hold policy views that seem to contradict their party label (Ellis & Stimson, 2012). My project ReKive proposes a solution to the problems of polarization and misinformation that focuses on making the American public more informed about the work being done on Capitol Hill. ReKive is a platform where crucial government information can be accessed quickly and conveniently using AI technology. Bills that are introduced and passed by the House are concisely summarized to become more digestible for the everyday voter. Budget bills are appropriately outlined to increase transparency of where tax dollars are being distributed. State representatives are on clear display alongside their supporting policies and clear directions on how to reach them for inquiries. ReKive uses information directly from government sources, which allows minimal opportunity for bias and aims to bridge the gap between the government and its citizens so that elections can become an opportunity for informed democratic participation.

The Nature of Polarization

Scholarly understanding of American polarization has evolved considerably since the early 2000s. The foundational question of whether ordinary Americans are truly polarized or whether polarization is primarily an elite phenomenon remains contested. Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope (2005) argued influentially that the American public is not as polarized as commonly assumed, suggesting instead that the perception of a divided America is driven by increasingly extreme political elites and amplified by media coverage that privileges conflict. In their view, most Americans remain moderate and tolerant, and the so-called "culture war" is largely a myth manufactured by politicians, activists, and pundits.

However, subsequent research has complicated this picture. Pew Research Center's landmark 2014 study of over 10,000 adults found that the share of Americans holding consistently liberal or conservative views had doubled over two decades, from 10% to 21%, while the ideological center had contracted (Pew Research Center, 2014). Critically, this ideological sorting was most pronounced among the most politically active citizens. Precisely those who vote in primaries, donate to campaigns, and contact elected officials, meaning that the most polarized voices exert disproportionate influence on the political process.

A Brown University study by Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro (2020) placed American polarization in comparative context and found that affective polarization in the United States has increased more dramatically since the late 1970s than in eight other democracies examined, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany. The researchers noted that partisan identity in the U.S. has become increasingly aligned with racial, religious, and cultural identities, making partisan conflict feel more existential than it does in countries where political parties are less socially homogeneous.

What makes this body of research particularly relevant to ReKive's mission is a recurring finding across studies in which the most politically engaged Americans hold the least accurate views of the other side's beliefs (Ahler & Sood, 2018). Progressive activists and extreme conservatives, the people most involved in civic life, exhibit the largest "perception gaps" about their opponents' policy preferences (More in Common, 2018). This suggests that increased engagement alone is insufficient. What matters is the quality and source of information that accompanies engagement.

The Operational-Symbolic Paradox

Ellis and Stimson's (2012) work on "operational" versus "symbolic" ideology provides a crucial framework for understanding why ReKive's approach of grounding political information in concrete policy rather than ideological labels is well-supported by political science. Their research demonstrates that the American public is simultaneously symbolically conservative and operationally liberal and most Americans identify with conservative labels and symbols while simultaneously favoring increased government spending and activity across a wide range of policy areas.

This paradox exists because ideological self-identification is shaped not by careful evaluation of policy positions but by cultural affiliations, media framing, and elite messaging (Ellis & Stimson, 2012). A significant portion of the electorate, whom Ellis and Stimson term "conflicted conservatives", hold liberal policy preferences while identifying as conservative, largely because the symbolic meaning of "conservative" has become associated with religiosity, patriotism, and traditional values rather than with specific policy stances. This group is numerous enough to influence presidential election outcomes.

The implication for civic technology is significant: when political information is presented through the lens of ideological labels and partisan identity, it activates symbolic identification rather than substantive policy reasoning. A platform that instead presents government activity in terms of its concrete impacts, what a bill does, how a budget allocation affects a specific community, what a representative has actually voted for, bypasses the symbolic layer entirely and engages citizens at the operational level where genuine cross-partisan agreement already exists.

Misinformation, Media Trust, and Democratic Participation

The crisis of misinformation in American democracy operates through a feedback loop with declining institutional trust. Research from the Brookings Institution has documented that only 20% of Americans feel "very confident" in the integrity of the election system, while 42% of young Americans believe their vote does not make a difference (Brookings, 2021). The Harvard Kennedy School's Misinformation Review has found that exposure to fake news is associated with declining trust in mainstream media, creating conditions in which citizens become more susceptible to further misinformation (Ognyanova et al., 2020).

An emerging line of scholarship suggests that misinformation may be better understood as a symptom rather than a root cause. As Annenberg School researchers have argued, citizens who already perceive that institutions are failing them become more susceptible to false narratives (Williams, 2023). This perspective aligns with Zuckerman's (2017) argument that the crisis is fundamentally one of mistrust and efficacy. People turn to unreliable information sources not because they lack critical thinking skills, but because they have lost faith that mainstream institutions serve their interests.

The Carnegie Endowment's evidence-based policy guide on countering disinformation (2024) further supports this analysis by documenting a strong correlation between the decline of local news outlets and reduced civic engagement, knowledge, and trust. As local journalism has contracted, communities have lost their primary means of understanding how government decisions affect their daily lives. This is the very connection that ReKive aims to restore through technological means.

The Information Architecture Gap

Dunaway's research at Syracuse University's Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship provides an important structural explanation for polarization that goes beyond individual psychology. She argues that the economic model of digital media, in which attention metrics drive revenue, creates powerful incentives to publish content that is extreme and outrage-inducing rather than informative (Dunaway, 2024). The result is an information ecosystem in which the most politically extreme voices receive disproportionate coverage, leading ordinary partisans to dramatically overestimate how extreme their opponents are.

This finding echoes Baldassarri and Gelman's (2008) earlier work showing that while elites have become more ideologically coherent and polarized, mass opinion has been characterized more by increased "issue alignment". The public is not so much polarized as it is sorted, guided by partisan cues into increasingly coherent ideological packages that may not reflect their independent policy judgments.

What is missing from the current information landscape is infrastructure specifically designed to connect citizens with primary government information in a way that is accessible, digestible, and grounded in their lived experience. The OECD's work on disinformation emphasizes that media and civic literacy initiatives must go beyond teaching people to identify falsehoods; they must equip citizens with the tools to understand how algorithmic systems shape their information environment and how government activity connects to their daily concerns (OECD, 2024). ReKive is positioned to address this gap by providing a direct channel between government data and citizen understanding, using AI to translate policy language into concrete, personally relevant information.

Toward Intentional Civic Infrastructure

The historical pattern of internet development reveals a recurring failure: each generation of digital technology has been built without anticipation of its political consequences. Web 1.0 resolved the question of information access but created the problem of editorial gatekeeping through search rankings. Web 2.0 resolved the question of participation but created the problem of algorithmic manipulation through engagement-optimized feeds. In each case, the political infrastructure that emerged was an afterthought rather than a design principle.

The research reviewed here suggests that the conditions for a different approach now exist. The technology to synthesize and personalize government information using AI has matured. The demand for alternatives to partisan media is evidenced by record-low trust in institutions and media. And the political science literature increasingly points toward a specific diagnosis: the problem is not that Americans are too divided to agree on policy, but that the information systems through which they encounter politics are structurally designed to amplify division rather than facilitate understanding.

ReKive represents an attempt to build civic information infrastructure with intentionality. To design a platform that starts from the premise that technology is political infrastructure and that democratic values should be embedded in its architecture from the foundation. By drawing exclusively from government data sources, presenting policy in terms of concrete impacts rather than ideological labels, and using AI to make legislative activity accessible to ordinary citizens, ReKive addresses the structural conditions that the literature identifies as driving both polarization and misinformation.

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