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Cited by 109Social Media and PoliticsElectoral Systems and Political ParticipationMedia Influence and Politics

Context matters: political polarization on Twitter from a comparative perspective

Urman, Aleksandra·2020·Media, Culture & Society
DOI 10.1177/0163443719876541
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Abstract

This article explores the issue of political polarization on social media. It shows that the intensity of polarization on Twitter varies greatly from one country to another. The analysis is performed using network-analytic audience duplication approach and is based on the data about the followers of the political parties’ Twitter accounts in 16 democratic countries. Based on the topology of the audience duplication graphs, the political Twitterspheres of the countries are classified as perfectly integrated, integrated, mixed, polarized and perfectly polarized. Explorative analysis shows that polarization is the highest in two-party systems with plurality electoral rules and the lowest in multi-party systems with proportional voting. The findings help explain the discrepancies in the results of previous studies into polarization on social media. The results of the study indicate that extrapolation of the findings from single-case studies on the topic is impossible in most cases, suggesting that more comparative studies on the matter are necessary to better understand the subject and get generalizable results.

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  • La fragmentación según contenidos de particular interés es tangible, como muestran numerosos estudios sobre el uso de información en medios sociales, especialmente Twitter, que grafican burbujas multicolores con limitadas conexiones vinculantes.

    “La fragmentación según contenidos de particular interés es tangible, como muestran numerosos estudios sobre el uso de información en medios sociales (especialmente Twitter), que grafican burbujas multicolores con limitadas conexiones vinculantes (ver Urman, 2019).”

    From ¿Es válido atribuir la polarización política a la comunicación digital? Sobre burbujas, plataformas y polarización afectiva (2020) · cites this paper as Urman, 2019

  • La polarización es más alta en los sistemas bipartidistas y más baja en los sistemas bipartidistas con voto proporcional, lo que sugiere una extrapolación a los sistemas presidencialistas de doble vuelta en América Latina.

    “la polarización es más alta en los sistemas bipartidistas, y más baja, en los sistemas bipartidistas con voto proporcional (Urman, 2020), lo que sugiere una extrapolación a los sistemas presidencialistas de doble vuelta en América Latina”

    From Emociones y polarización de las comunidades digitales en América Latina: elecciones presidenciales 2018-2019 (2023) · cites this paper as Urman, 2020

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Authors
Urman, A.
Affiliations
University of Bern (CH)
Corresponding author
Urman, Aleksandra
ORCID
Urman, Aleksandra
Venue
Media, Culture & Society
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2019-10-15
Volume
42
Issue
6
Pages
857-879
ISSN
  • 0163-4437 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-3675
DOI
10.1177/0163443719876541
OpenAlex
W2980432476
Cited by
108
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 4
FWCI
23.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Media Culture & Society (publishedVersion)
  • Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
Keywords
political polarization, Twitter, social media, political parties, network topology, two-party system, proportional representation, electoral systems, cross-national comparison, democratic countries

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