Related papers: To Kavanaugh or Not to Kavanaugh: That is the Pola…
This paper addresses polarization quantification, particularly as it pertains to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court and his subsequent confirmation with the narrowest margin since 1881. Republican (GOP) and Democratic…
Social media has played an important role in shaping political discourse over the last decade. At the same time, it is often perceived to have increased political polarization, thanks to the scale of discussions and their public nature. In…
Polarization in American politics has been extensively documented and analyzed for decades, and the phenomenon became all the more apparent during the 2016 presidential election, where Trump and Clinton depicted two radically different…
There is growing concern that over the past decade, industrialized democratic nations are becoming increasingly politically polarized. Indeed, elections in the US, UK, France, and Germany have all seen tightly won races, with notable…
Polls posted on social media have emerged in recent years as an important tool for estimating public opinion, e.g., to gauge public support for business decisions and political candidates in national elections. Here, we examine nearly two…
The aftermath of the 2020 US Presidential Election witnessed an unprecedented attack on the democratic values of the country through the violent insurrection at Capitol Hill on January 6th, 2021. The attack was fueled by the proliferation…
Research across different disciplines has documented the expanding polarization in social media. However, much of it focused on the US political system or its culturally controversial topics. In this work, we explore polarization on Twitter…
Polarization is a troubling phenomenon that can lead to societal divisions and hurt the democratic process. It is therefore important to develop methods to reduce it. We propose an algorithmic solution to the problem of reducing…
One of the hallmarks of a free and fair society is the ability to conduct a peaceful and seamless transfer of power from one leader to another. Democratically, this is measured in a citizen population's trust in the electoral system of…
The growing political polarization of the American electorate over the last several decades has been widely studied and documented. During the administration of President Donald Trump, charges of "fake news" made social and news media not…
On June 24, 2018, Turkey held a historical election, transforming its parliamentary system to a presidential one. One of the main questions for Turkish voters was whether to start this new political era with reelecting its long-time…
The rise of misinformation and fake news in online political discourse poses significant challenges to democratic processes and public engagement. While debunking efforts aim to counteract misinformation and foster fact-based dialogue,…
Social media platforms play a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and amplifying political discourse, particularly during elections. However, the same dynamics that foster democratic engagement can also exacerbate polarization. To better…
While the polls have been the most trusted source for election predictions for decades, in the recent presidential election they were called inaccurate and biased. How inaccurate were the polls in this election and can social media beat the…
US voters shared large volumes of polarizing political news and information in the form of links to content from Russian, WikiLeaks and junk news sources. Was this low quality political information distributed evenly around the country, or…
This work is produced by researchers at the Neuropolitics Research Lab, School of Social and Political Science and the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. In this report we provide an analysis of the social media posts on…
We explore how the polarization around controversial topics evolves on Twitter - over a long period of time (2011 to 2016), and also as a response to major external events that lead to increased related activity. We find that increased…
Social media have great potential to support diverse information sharing, but there is widespread concern that platforms like Twitter do not result in communication between those who hold contradictory viewpoints. Because users can choose…
Social media platforms allow users to create polls to gather public opinion on diverse topics. However, we know little about what such polls are used for and how reliable they are, especially in significant contexts like elections. Focusing…
Prior research shows that public opinion on climate politics sorts along partisan lines. However, they leave open the question of whether climate politics and other politically salient issues exhibit tendencies for issue alignment, which…