Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism

This paper is a systematic large scale study of the reasons driving political fragmentation on social media. Making use of a comparative dataset of the Twitter discussion activities of 115 political groups in 26 countries, it shows that groups which are further apart in ideological terms interact le...

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Main Author: Bright, J
Format: Journal article
Published: Oxford University Press 2018
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author Bright, J
author_facet Bright, J
author_sort Bright, J
collection OXFORD
description This paper is a systematic large scale study of the reasons driving political fragmentation on social media. Making use of a comparative dataset of the Twitter discussion activities of 115 political groups in 26 countries, it shows that groups which are further apart in ideological terms interact less, and that groups which sit at the extremes of the ideological scale are particularly likely to have lower patterns of interaction. Indeed, exchanges between centrists who sit on different sides of the left-right divide are more likely than connections between centrists and extremists who are from the same ideological wing. In light of the results, theory about exposure to different ideological viewpoints online is discussed and enhanced.
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spelling oxford-uuid:6f8798dc-f0c2-48eb-b59b-71bd6ec6d3862022-03-26T19:31:06ZExplaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremismJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:6f8798dc-f0c2-48eb-b59b-71bd6ec6d386Symplectic Elements at OxfordOxford University Press2018Bright, JThis paper is a systematic large scale study of the reasons driving political fragmentation on social media. Making use of a comparative dataset of the Twitter discussion activities of 115 political groups in 26 countries, it shows that groups which are further apart in ideological terms interact less, and that groups which sit at the extremes of the ideological scale are particularly likely to have lower patterns of interaction. Indeed, exchanges between centrists who sit on different sides of the left-right divide are more likely than connections between centrists and extremists who are from the same ideological wing. In light of the results, theory about exposure to different ideological viewpoints online is discussed and enhanced.
spellingShingle Bright, J
Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism
title Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism
title_full Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism
title_fullStr Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism
title_full_unstemmed Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism
title_short Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: the role of ideology and extremism
title_sort explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media the role of ideology and extremism
work_keys_str_mv AT brightj explainingtheemergenceofpoliticalfragmentationonsocialmediatheroleofideologyandextremism