Isabella Gannon is a junior behavioural analyst at Canvas8. She holds a BA in European Studies from Trinity College Dublin, and there became interested in the relationship between media, identity and visual culture. Outside of work, she’s frequently reading, going to gigs, and navigating obscure corners of wikipedia.

The past decade has seen political polarisation – accelerated by social media’s filter bubbles and echo chambers – deepen and mutate. An ominous era of a polycrisis has shattered any remaining societal consensus. Meanwhile, powerful anti-establishment voices have stepped into the void.

Polarised Populations

People are taking a patchwork approach to self-expression to feel like they have control over how their identity is generated. Yet as individual expression becomes more mutable and mistrust in social systems abounds, there’s one place above all that people are seeking integrity and guidance: brands.

Reality Split

Gen Z (born 1997-2010)

Gen Y (born 1982-1996)

United States

Citizenship

Technology

Social networking

Analysis of TikTok feeds in the run-up to the US presidential election highlighted a distinct gap in the political content shown to men and women across the platform. With social media serving as a political battleground, the data speaks to a widening ideological divide between genders.