Borah Anindita, Singh Sanasam Ranbir
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam India.
Soc Netw Anal Min. 2022;12(1):97. doi: 10.1007/s13278-022-00939-z. Epub 2022 Jul 31.
Social media plays a pivotal role in shaping communication among political entities. Substantial research has been carried out for examining the impact of politicians' social media usage and interactions on political polarization. Analysing political polarization is particularly significant for fragmented political systems like India where collaboration between parties is essential for winning support in parliament. Different topics of discussion between political entities may induce different levels of polarization. This study aims to examine the presence of polarization on Twitter social media platform with respect to different topics of political discussions among Indian politicians. The investigation is based upon two conflicting notions about social media in influencing political polarization. The first notion regards social media as a medium for interaction between different ideological users. The second opinion on the other hand focuses on prevalence of selective exposure in social media leading to polarization. The study will investigate the use of Twitter for forming communication ties in and between parties and the extent of divergence of opinions during political discourse. The investigation performs social network analysis and content analysis of the tweets posted by Indian politicians during some major events in India from 2019 to 2021. For an unbiased topic-specific analysis of polarization, some important topics related to Indian government policies, national security and natural disaster events have been considered. The findings of the study suggest that Twitter not only opens up communication spaces to Indian political users but also makes online political discussions among them polarized. Moreover, the extent of polarization varies with respect to topics of political discussions. Polarization is more for controversial and debatable topics than non-controversial ones.
社交媒体在塑造政治实体间的交流方面发挥着关键作用。已开展了大量研究来考察政治家使用社交媒体及互动对政治两极分化的影响。对于像印度这样的碎片化政治体系而言，分析政治两极分化尤为重要，因为政党间的合作对于在议会赢得支持至关重要。政治实体之间不同的讨论话题可能会引发不同程度的两极分化。本研究旨在考察在推特社交媒体平台上，印度政治家之间围绕不同政治讨论话题存在的两极分化情况。该调查基于关于社交媒体影响政治两极分化的两种相互冲突的观点。第一种观点将社交媒体视为不同意识形态用户之间的互动媒介。另一方面，第二种观点则关注社交媒体中选择性曝光的盛行导致两极分化的情况。该研究将调查推特在政党内部及政党之间形成交流纽带方面的使用情况，以及政治话语期间意见分歧的程度。该调查对2019年至2021年印度一些重大事件期间印度政治家发布的推文进行了社会网络分析和内容分析。为了对两极分化进行无偏差的特定主题分析，考虑了一些与印度政府政策、国家安全和自然灾害事件相关的重要话题。研究结果表明，推特不仅为印度政治用户开辟了交流空间，还使他们之间的在线政治讨论两极分化。此外，两极分化的程度因政治讨论话题而异。对于有争议和可辩论的话题，两极分化程度高于无争议话题。
