Related papers: Quantifying polarization across political groups o…
Multiple countries have recently experienced extreme political polarization, which in some cases led to escalation of hate crime, violence and political instability. Beside the much discussed presidential elections in the United States and…
Political polarization plays a pivotal and potentially harmful role in a democracy. However, existing studies are often limited to a single country and one form of polarization, hindering a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena. Here…
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…
Political polarization, a key driver of social fragmentation, has drawn increasing attention for its role in shaping online and offline discourse. Despite significant efforts, accurately measuring polarization within ideological…
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…
Democrats and Republicans have seemed to grow apart in the past three decades. Since the United States as we know it today is undeniably bipartisan, this phenomenon would not appear as a surprise to most. However, there are triggers which…
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…
Following recent policy changes by X (Twitter) and other social media platforms, user interaction data has become increasingly difficult to access. These restrictions are impeding robust research pertaining to social and political phenomena…
Climate change and political polarisation are two of the 21st century's critical socio-political issues. Here, we investigate their intersection by studying the discussion around the UN Conference of The Parties on Climate Change (COP)…
Does polarization online reflect the state of polarization in society? We study ideological positions and attitudes on several issues in France, a country with documented issue nonalignment. We compare distributions on X/Twitter with a…
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…
Optimism about the Internet's potential to bring the world together has been tempered by concerns about its role in inflaming the 'culture wars'. Via mass selection into like-minded groups, online society may be becoming more fragmented and…
In an era where societal narratives are increasingly shaped by algorithmic curation, investigating the political neutrality of LLMs is an important research question. This study presents a fresh perspective on quantifying the political…
The existence of polarization and echo chambers has been noted in social media discussions of public concern such as the Covid-19 pandemic, foreign election interference, and regional conflicts. However, measuring polarization and assessing…
The study analyses polarisation on Finnish social media with data from the platform X, which was known as Twitter during the time of data collection (during the Sipil\"a and Marin governments, 2015-2023). The users were clustered into three…
Brexit, a global pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and record inflation - few legislative bodies have faced such a cascade of shocks as the European Parliament did during its 9th term (2019-2024). Using the Bipartite Configuration…
This paper introduces a definition of ideological polarization of an electorate around a particular central point. By being flexible about the location or width of the center, this measure enables the researcher to analyze polarization…
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…
The abundance of information on social media has reshaped public discussions, shifting attention to the mechanisms that drive online discourse. This study analyzes large-scale Twitter (now X) data from three global debates--Climate Change,…
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…