Affiliation:
1. Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Abstract
Political polarization on social media has been extensively studied. However, most research has examined polarization about topics that have preexisting associations with ideology, while few studies have tracked the onset of polarization about novel topics or the evolution of polarization over a prolonged period. The occurrence of COVID-19 provides a unique opportunity to study whether social media discourse about a novel event becomes increasingly polarized along ideological lines over time. This paper analyzes trends in Twitter polarization in relation to COVID-19 and other geopolitical events of 2020. The first two studies use topic analysis to examine the evolving difference over time in discussions of COVID-19 and other topics by liberals and conservatives on social media. COVID-19-related polarization is initially absent but gradually increases over time, in contrast to polarization related to other events. A third study examines structural polarization in retweet networks and finds that the frequency of counterpartisan retweets reduces over time. Across all three studies, we find evidence that Twitter discussion of COVID-19 has become more polarized over time.
Funder
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
Subject
Human-Computer Interaction,General Social Sciences,Social Psychology