Related papers: Inside the Echo Chamber: Disentangling network dyn…
We study the connections between network structure, opinion dynamics, and an adversary's power to artificially induce disagreements. We approach these questions by extending models of opinion formation in the social sciences to represent…
We evaluate homophily and heterophily among ideological and demographic groups in a typical opinion formation context: online discussions of current news. We analyze user interactions across five years in the r/news community on Reddit, one…
This research presents a framework for analyzing the dynamics of online communities in social media platforms, utilizing a temporal fusion of text and network data. By combining text classification and dynamic social network analysis, we…
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…
Understanding the emergence of strong controversial issues in modern societies is a key issue in opinion studies. A commonly diffused idea is the fact that the increasing of homophily in social networks, due to the modern ICT, can be a…
According to the World Economic Forum, the diffusion of unsubstantiated rumors on online social media is one of the main threats for our society. The disintermediated paradigm of content production and consumption on online social media…
Increasingly taking place in online spaces, modern political conversations are typically perceived to be unproductively affirming -- siloed in so called ``echo chambers'' of exclusively like-minded discussants. Yet, to date we lack…
An educated and informed consumption of media content has become a challenge in modern times. With the shift from traditional news outlets to social media and similar venues, a major concern is that readers are becoming encapsulated in…
Recommender systems increasingly suffer from echo chambers and user homogenization, systemic distortions arising from the dynamic interplay between algorithmic recommendations and human behavior. While prior work has studied these phenomena…
Online communities play a critical role in shaping societal discourse and influencing collective behavior in the real world. The tendency for people to connect with others who share similar characteristics and views, known as homophily,…
This paper deals with the modeling and estimation of the sociological phenomena called echo chambers and segregation in social networks. Specifically, we present a novel community-based graph model that represents the emergence of…
We investigate opinion dynamics and information spreading on networks under the influence of content filtering technologies. The filtering mechanism, present in many online social platforms, reduces individuals' exposure to disagreeing…
Understanding and quantifying polarization in social systems is important because of many reasons. It could for instance help to avoid segregation and conflicts in the society or to control polarized debates and predict their outcomes. In…
The rise of social media and online social networks has been a disruptive force in society. Opinions are increasingly shaped by interactions on online social media, and social phenomena including disagreement and polarization are now…
We study the evolution of long-lived controversial debates as manifested on Twitter from 2011 to 2016. Specifically, we explore how the structure of interactions and content of discussion varies with the level of collective attention, as…
Polarization is often a clich{\'e}, its conceptualization remains approximate and no consensus has been reached so far. Often simply seen as an inevitable result of the use of social networks, polarization nevertheless remains a complex…
Social media is often blamed for the creation of echo chambers. However, these claims fail to consider the prevalence of offline echo chambers resulting from high levels of partisan segregation in the United States. Our article empirically…
In recent years, the ease with which social media can be accessed has led to the unexpected problem of a shrinkage in information sources. This phenomenon is caused by a system that facilitates the connection of people with similar ideas…
Opinion dynamics is an important and very active area of research that delves into the complex processes through which individuals form and modify their opinions within a social context. The ability to comprehend and unravel the mechanisms…
The COVID-19 pandemic brought upon a massive wave of disinformation, exacerbating polarization in the increasingly divided landscape of online discourse. In this context, popular social media users play a major role, as they have the…