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Cited by 118Opinion Dynamics and Social InfluenceSocial Media and PoliticsElectoral Systems and Political Participation

Modeling the emergence of affective polarization in the social media society

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Törnberg, Petter, Andersson, Claes, Lindgren, Kristian, Banisch, Sven·2021·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0258259PMC PMC8504759
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Abstract

Rising political polarization in recent decades has hampered and gridlocked policymaking, as well as weakened trust in democratic institutions. These developments have been linked to the idea that new media technology fosters extreme views and political conflict by facilitating self-segregation into “echo chambers” where opinions are isolated and reinforced. This opinion-centered picture has recently been challenged by an emerging political science literature on “affective polarization”, which suggests that current polarization is better understood as driven by partisanship emerging as a strong social identity. Through this lens, politics has become a question of competing social groups rather than differences in policy position. Contrary to the opinion-centered view, this identity-centered perspective has not been subject to dynamical formal modeling, which generally permits hypotheses about micro-level explanations for macro-level phenomena to be systematically tested and explored. We here propose a formal model that links new information technology to affective polarization via social psychological mechanisms of social identity. Our results suggest that new information technology catalyzes affective polarization by lowering search and interaction costs, which shifts the balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces of social identity. We find that the macro-dynamics of social identity is characterized by two stable regimes on the societal level: one fluid regime, in which identities are weak and social connections heterogeneous, and one solid regime in which identities are strong and groups homogeneous. We also find evidence of hysteresis, meaning that a transition into a fragmented state is not readily reversed by again increasing those costs. This suggests that, due to systemic feedback effects, if polarization passes certain tipping points, we may experience run-away political polarization that is highly difficult to reverse.

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  • Polarization on digital media affords a form of politics rooted in identity rather than opinion.

    “The suggestion is, in short, that polarization on digital media is driven by conflict rather than isolation (117), affording a form of politics rooted in identity rather than opinion (4).”

    From How digital media drive affective polarization through partisan sorting (2022) · cites this paper as [4]

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Authors
Törnberg, P., Andersson, C., Lindgren, K., & Banisch, S.
Affiliations
  • University of Amsterdam (NL)
  • Ca' Foscari University of Venice (IT)
  • Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
  • Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (DE)
Corresponding author
  • Törnberg, Petter
  • Andersson, Claes
  • Lindgren, Kristian
  • Banisch, Sven
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2021-10-11
Volume
16
Issue
10
Pages
e0258259
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0258259
PMC
PMC8504759
OpenAlex
W3206308820
Cited by
118
References
111
Citations by year
2026: 28 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 2
FWCI
6.13
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Chalmers Research (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Horizon 2020 (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 732942.)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
Keywords
affective polarization, political polarization, social identity, partisanship, social media, echo chambers, new information technologies, social segregation, hysteresis, tipping points, social dynamics, formal modeling, democratic trust
MeSH terms
Computer Simulation, Models, Theoretical, Social Media

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