Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization

Bail, Christopher A.; Argyle, Lisa P.; Brown, Taylor; Bumpus, John P.; Chen, Haohan; Hunzaker, M. B. Fallin; Lee, Jaemin; Mann, Marcus; Merhout, Friedolin; Volfovsky, Alexander

doi:10.1073/pnas.1804840115

Cited by 1,014 publications

(867 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…It is here where the computer sciences can be especially helpful, offering innovative ways to examine social and political problems [43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. And, as larger amounts of digitized observational and historical data are made available, researchers will do well to consider the ways that computational approaches like natural language processing or unsupervised learning might unlock new methods for conducting research on seemingly impenetrable and opaque issues like misinformation and philanthropy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The growth of climate change misinformation in US philanthropy: evidence from natural language processing

Farrell

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Two of the most consequential developments affecting US politics are (1) the growing influence of private philanthropy, and (2) the large-scale production and diffusion of misinformation. Despite their importance, the links between these two trends have not been scientifically examined. This study employs a sophisticated research design on a large collection of new data, utilizing natural language processing and approximate string matching to examine the relationship between the large-scale climate misinformation movement and US philanthropy. The study finds that over a twenty year period, networks of actors promulgating scientific misinformation about climate change were increasingly integrated into the institution of US philanthropy. The degree of integration is predicted by funding ties to prominent corporate donors. These findings reveal new knowledge about largescale efforts to distort public understanding of science and sow polarization. The study also contributes a unique computational approach to be applied at this increasingly important, yet methodologically fraught, area of research.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The growth of climate change misinformation in US philanthropy: evidence from natural language processing

Farrell

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Beyond the scope of the US West, scholars have combined text analysis with network analysis to examine how democracy is being thwarted, by uncovering the financial connections between industry and lobbying (Farrell 2016a(Farrell , 2016b(Farrell , 2019, as well as via online social networks (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) that have created echo-chambers and can foster greater polarization within the public (Farrell 2015a, Bail et al 2018, Jasny et al 2018. While these issues are certainly national in scope, there exists an opportunity for scholars to use network analysis to consider how these issues are playing out in similar (or different) ways within Western communities and political processes.…”

Section: State Of the Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social scientific research on the American West: current debates, novel methods, and new directions

Burow

McConnell

Farrell

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Reviewing recent social science research on the western United States from multiple disciplines, we present a state-of-the-art synthesis for scholars and policymakers focused on the socioecological future of this distinctive region. We address four core topics: (1) Migration and population change, focusing on the movements of people across the US West, and the ways that these population shifts are both shaped by and shaping the rise of 'New West' economies.(2) Environmental governance, synthesizing work on non-federal government institutions' interactions with the environment, including local/regional government agencies, Indigenous nations, and non-governmental organizations-all of which shape environmental quality and resource access for communities. (3) Place, culture, and belonging, which concerns how people find meaning in their environment and locate their sense of place in the region given changing social and natural landscapes. (4) Research methodologies, with a specific focus on blending cutting-edge machine learning, and social network approaches with well-established ethnographic, demographic, and survey-based methods. We then map out a future interdisciplinary agenda for the policy-relevant study of social and environmental change in the US West. Our approach stresses the importance of mixed method social research and a robust understanding of how culture, values, and identities intersect with ecological changes on landscapes to shape the well-being of people and ecosystems.

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“…• Combat xenophobia and discrimination. A growing body of research within computational social science has been devoted to untangling complex societal issues, from polarization [63], community integration [64], gender and ethnic stereotypes [65], to fake news [66,67]. Xenophobia and discrimination are equivalent issues and deserve equal attention.…”

Section: Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Phone Data for Children on the Move: Challenges and Opportunities

Sekara

Omodei

Healy

et al. 2019

Guide to Mobile Data Analytics in Refugee Scenarios

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Today, 95% of the global population has 2G mobile phone coverage [1] and the number of individuals who own a mobile phone is at an all time high. Mobile phones generate rich data on billions of people across different societal contexts and have in the last decade helped redefine how we do research and build tools to understand society. As such, mobile phone data has the potential to revolutionize how we tackle humanitarian problems [2], such as the many suffered by refugees all over the world. While promising, mobile phone data and the new computational approaches bring both opportunities and challenges [3]. Mobile phone traces contain detailed information regarding people's whereabouts, social life, and even financial standing. Therefore, developing and adopting strategies that open data up to the wider humanitarian and international development community for analysis and research while simultaneously protecting the privacy of individuals is of paramount importance [4]. Here we outline the challenging situation of children on the move and actions UNICEF is pushing in helping displaced children and youth globally, and discuss opportunities where mobile phone data can be used.

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Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization

Cited by 1,014 publications

References 39 publications

The growth of climate change misinformation in US philanthropy: evidence from natural language processing

The growth of climate change misinformation in US philanthropy: evidence from natural language processing

Social scientific research on the American West: current debates, novel methods, and new directions

Mobile Phone Data for Children on the Move: Challenges and Opportunities

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