Related papers: Recursive patterns in online echo chambers
Political polarization appears to be on the rise, as measured by voting behavior, general affect towards opposing partisans and their parties, and contents posted and consumed online. Research over the years has focused on the role of the…
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,…
We explore a new mechanism to explain polarization phenomena in opinion dynamics in which agents evaluate alternative views on the basis of the social feedback obtained on expressing them. High support of the favored opinion in the social…
The prevalence of misinformation on online social media has tangible empirical connections to increasing political polarization and partisan antipathy in the United States. Ranking algorithms for social recommendation often encode broad…
Does engagement with opposing views help break down ideological `echo chambers'; or does it backfire and reinforce them? This question remains critical as academics, policymakers and activists grapple with the question of how to regulate…
Unlike the more observable phenomenon of group opinion reinforcement, self-censorship online has received comparatively less attention. Our goal in this work is to dissect the phenomena of self-censorship and to examine the implications of…
The micro-blogging platform Twitter allows its nearly 320 million monthly active users to build a network of follower connections to other Twitter users (i.e., followees) in order to subscribe to content posted by these users. With this…
Social media platforms are online fora where users engage in discussions, share content, and build connections. This review explores the dynamics of social interactions, user-generated contents, and biases within the context of social media…
Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so called \emph{collective intelligence}, conspiracy theories -- e.g. global warming induced by chemtrails or the link between vaccines and autism -- find on the Web a natural medium for their…
The emergence of opinion polarization within human communities -- the phenomenon that individuals within a society tend to develop conflicting attitudes related to the greatest diversity of topics -- has been a focus of interest for…
Polarization of opinions has been empirically noted in many online social network platforms. Traditional models of opinion dynamics, based on statistical physics principles, do not account for the emergence of polarization and echo chambers…
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,…
Among different aspects of social networks, dynamics have been proposed to simulate how opinions can be transmitted. In this study, we propose a model that simulates the communication in an online social network, in which the posts are…
Parents - particularly moms - increasingly consult social media for support when taking decisions about their young children, and likely also when advising other family members such as elderly relatives. Minimizing malignant online…
Social news websites, such as Reddit, have evolved into prominent platforms for sharing and discussing news. A key issue on social news websites sites is the formation of echo chambers, which often lead to the spread of highly biased or…
With social media, the flow of uncertified information is constantly increasing, with the risk that more people will trust low-credible information sources. To design effective strategies against this phenomenon, it is of paramount…
Echo chambers, i.e., situations where one is exposed only to opinions that agree with their own, are an increasing concern for the political discourse in many democratic countries. This paper studies the phenomenon of political echo…
In recent years online social networks have become increasingly prominent in political campaigns and, concurrently, several countries have experienced shock election outcomes. This paper proposes a model that links these two phenomena. In…
Affective polarization, or, inter-party hostility, is increasingly recognized as a pervasive issue in democracies worldwide, posing a threat to social cohesion. The digital media ecosystem, now widely accessible and ever-present, has often…
In this study, I present a theoretical social learning model to investigate how confirmation bias affects opinions when agents exchange information over a social network. Hence, besides exchanging opinions with friends, agents observe a…