Ideological and Behavioral Perspectives on Online Political Polarization:

Zeyu Lyu
2020 Riron to hoho  
This study sought to understand online political polarization in Japan on the basis of ideological stances and interaction behaviors. Motivated by the advantages provided by social media data, this research worked toward the aforementioned aim by leveraging a computational method. Specifically, the ideological positions of numerous Twitter users were determined by implementing calculations to identify and map their follow networks, which enabled ascertaining the degree of polarization in terms
more » ... f overall ideological distribution. The behavioral components of political polarization were then investigated by analyzing the interaction behaviors among users. The results on overall ideology showed that the majority of the users exhibited moderate ideological orientations, implying a relatively low extent of polarization. While the findings on behavioral components indicated that the users tended to interact with ideologically similar others, especially those identified as extremists, in discussions concerning political issues. On the whole, the investigation led to the conclusion that despite the low degree of partisanship in Japan, social media still functions as an echo chamber to reinforce homophilic interactions.
doi:10.11218/ojjams.35.170 fatcat:c4jip454ijeclltlm3e6hyux4q