scholarly journals The role of (social) media in political polarization: a systematic review

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Emily Kubin ◽  
Christian von Sikorski
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Political Polarization

scholarly journals Polarization in the contemporary political and media landscape

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne E Wilson ◽  
Victoria Parker ◽  
Matthew Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Polarization Phenomena ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
Over Time

Political polarization is on the rise in America. Although social psychologists frequently study the intergroup underpinnings of polarization, they have traditionally had less to say about macro societal processes that contribute to its rise and fall. Recent cross-disciplinary work on the contemporary political and media landscape provides these complementary insights. In this paper, we consider the evidence for and implications of political polarization, distinguishing between ideological, affective, and false polarization. We review three key societal-level factors contributing to these polarization phenomena: the role of political elites, partisan media, and social media dynamics. We argue that institutional polarization processes (elites, media and social media) contribute to people’s misperceptions of division among the electorate, which in turn can contribute to a self-perpetuating cycle fueling animosity (affective polarization) and actual ideological polarization over time.

What about WhatsApp? A systematic review of WhatsApp and its role in civic and political engagement

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Pang ◽  
Yue Ting Woo
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Instant Messaging ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Social Media Platforms

The use of instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp for civic and political purposes has been observed and reported to be growing faster than other social media platforms especially in recent years. Using empirical research on WhatsApp studies published from 2009 to 2019 as its corpus of data, this article systematically reviews them to provide more robust conclusions about WhatsApp and its relationship with political and/or civic engagement. This paper seeks to answer three central questions related to WhatsApp and engagement: 1) What are the motivations in using WhatsApp and how do they manifest in the use of WhatsApp as a communication tool? 2) What is the role of WhatsApp in civic and political engagement? 3) How do researchers study the use of WhatsApp in civic and political engagement? The review finds that across empirical studies, while WhatsApp is used by activists and organisational networks for mobilisation and coordinating actions, it is also used by users who draw on the affordances of the medium for informal and ‘de-politicised’ conversations. The findings contribute to the theorising of social media-mediated movements and activism and highlight methodological gaps of ongoing research on WhatsApp.

scholarly journals Role of Social Media in Earthquake: A Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
English Language ◽  
Storage And Retrieval ◽  
Current Systematic Review ◽  
Risk Areas ◽  
Food Needs ◽  
Management Institutions

Introduction: Social networks can perform a peculiar role in people's communication in the case of crisis and disaster. These media are interactive, digital, or mobile-based tools. Accordingly, the present study aimed to assess the role of social media in earthquakes. Materials and Methods: In this current systematic review, a query was conducted on such databases as Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane for articles in English language, based on the required criteria from 2000 to 2019 regarding the role of social media in disaster. As a result, 13,924 studies were retrieved, among which 3,963 were deleted due to duplication. Finally, among 244 selected articles, 19 full-text articles were analyzed. Result: In the present research, 19 studies were thoroughly reviewed. The findings were assigned to four main categories (identification, notification, requests, as well as storage and retrieval of information) with 12 sub-topics. Most of the main topics and subsets were as follows: medical and food needs, information about the accident, as well as medical and relief services, efforts to save lives, the amount of damage, problems and limitations, post-crisis measures, such as keeping calm, reducing anxiety, avoiding high-risk areas, asking for financial assistance, as well as using the information to provide relief and map the affected areas and evacuation centers. Conclusion: Considering the behavior of people in different geographical locations in the earthquake crisis, it seems that the case study of how to use social media in disaster management carries profound implications for modeling and localizing the cases in related disaster management institutions of many different countries, such as Iran.

Social Media as a Public Space For Political Activism: The Use of Twitter During Gezi Park Protests

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Begüm Burak ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Peak Time ◽  
Analysis Methodology ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Arab Spring

Political polarization in Turkey has not only been visible during electoral processes but it has also been evident in non-electoral processes in online and offline protests. Gezi Park protests in 2013 denote to such processes. This study analyzes the use of Twitter during Gezi Park protests that had sparked mass protests and a big polarization. The role of Twitter had been influential in mobilizing the masses in the protests. During Gezi protests as seen in the Arab Spring, Twitter was used by the protesters in a dense way in the polarized political environment. Using the “mediated populism” as the theoretical framework, this study argues that social media has paved the way for the emergence of a citizen-centered public space in times of crisis and polarization during Gezi protests. The data that will be under analysis consist of the tweets posted on Twitter during the peak of Gezi protests. The date between May 25 and June 16, 2013 is taken as the time span that refers to the peak time of protests. By detecting top-mentioned tweets, this study aims to analyze how political activism had been expressed by the protesters. To achieve this aim, the randomly selected tweets posted in this time span were examined by conducting content analysis methodology.

scholarly journals The Role of Social Media in Online Weight Management: Systematic Review

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. e262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Chang ◽  
Vineet Chopra ◽  
Catherine Zhang ◽  
Susan J Woolford
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Weight Management

scholarly journals Bots and misinformation spread on social media: A mixed scoping review with implications for COVID-19 (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
McKenzie Himelein-Wachowiak ◽  
Salvatore Giorgi ◽  
Amanda Devoto ◽  
Muhammad Rahman ◽  
Lyle Ungar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
State And Local

UNSTRUCTURED As of December 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been responsible for over 78 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, resulting in over 1.7 million deaths. In the United States in particular, protective measures against the COVID-19 pandemic have been hampered by political polarization and discrepancies among federal, state, and local policies. As a result, a huge amount of information surrounding COVID-19, some of it contradictory or blatantly false, has proliferated on social media. In this mixed scoping review, we survey the role of automated accounts, or “bots,” in spreading misinformation during past epidemics, natural disasters, and politically polarizing events through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also review strategies used by bots to spread (mis)information and machine learning methods for detecting bot activity. We conclude by conducting and presenting a secondary analysis of known bots, finding that up to 66% of bots are discussing COVID-19. The proliferation of COVID-19 (mis)information by bots, coupled with human susceptibility to believing and sharing misinformation, may well impact the course of the pandemic.

scholarly journals Social Media Use and Political Polarization: Political Engagement as a Mediator

2020 ◽  
pp. 804-810
Author(s):  
Kinza Amjad ◽  
Muzammil Saeed ◽  
Farahat Ali ◽  
Muhammad Awais
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Private University ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

Social media, in the new millennium, has become a very effective tool of communication, information, and propagation regarding all social, religious, and political discourses that further lead towards ideological divisions. In the contemporary democratic world, the role of social media for political opinion building is obvious which is done by opinion leaders through political information and debates. The purpose of this study is to explore the social media use and political polarization among social media users. The survey research method was used to examine social media use for political engagement and political polarization. Private university students were selected as participants (n=350). The result was found positive which means that social media use is responsible for political polarization. Moreover, social media use is also a significant predictor of political engagement. In addition to this, the results show that political engagement is a mediator between the relationship between social media use and political polarization. The practical implications of the study have been discussed.

Making friends and enemies on social media: the case of gun policy organizations

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 624-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Merry
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
National Rifle Association ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Echo Chambers ◽  
Making Friends ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of interest groups in the formation of online echo chambers and to determine whether interest groups’ use of social media contributes to political polarization. Design/methodology/approach This study used a content analysis of nearly 10,000 tweets (from 2009 to 2014) by the Brady campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association to examine how groups engage with their political allies and opponents. Findings The results indicated that both groups engaged primarily with their supporters on Twitter while avoiding confrontation with their opponents. In particular, both groups used hashtags designed to reach their supporters, retweeted messages almost exclusively from other users with whom they agreed, and disproportionately used Twitter handles of their allies, while avoiding the use of Twitter handles of their opponents. Practical implications The findings suggest that interest groups’ use of social media accelerates the formation of online echo chambers, but does not lead to an increase in polarization beyond existing levels, given practices that maintain civility between opposing sides. Originality/value This is one of few studies to examine the role of interest groups in the formation of online echo chambers. It also uses a novel approach – the examination of both the interactions that occur among social media users and those that are explicitly avoided.

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