Digital convergence * … 06/23/2021 … Digital convergence

Social media posts criticizing or ridiculing the “other side” of the ideological spectrum receive twice as many shares as those defending people or ideas from their own political tribe. In other words, the structure of social networks, in practice, encourages confrontation through “viralization”, especially of content that exacerbates political rivalry.

which indicates study It is conducted by psychologists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who analyzed over 2.7 million tweets and Facebook posts posted by the US media or members of the US Congress from various political circles.

The researchers also found that each additional word that refers to a competing political or rival worldview – for example, “Biden” or “Liberal” if it comes from a republican source – increases the chances that the post on social media will be distributed on average to 67% in the dataset.

These effects were considered the same on both platforms, regardless of political orientation. The results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an official publication of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Previous research on the virality of the Internet found that the use of highly emotional vocabulary increases the likelihood of sharing on social media, especially negative emotions such as anger or expressions of moral resentment. This latest study shows that the use of terms related to the “external political group” is almost five times more effective than the language of negative emotions and almost seven times more effective than the language of moral emotions in increasing the number of shares.

The researchers argue that the findings underscore the “perverse incentives” that are now driving discourse on major social media platforms, which in turn could fuel political polarization that threatens democratic processes – not only in the US, but elsewhere.

“The attack on the political opposition was the strongest indicator that the post went viral of any that we measured. This was the case with Republican and Democratic media, as well as politicians on Facebook and Twitter. Our research shows that external hate grabs our attention on the Internet much better than internal love. This could fuel a dangerous political climate, ”said Steve Rathieu, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Social Decisions Laboratory and first author of the study.

“Social networks involve us as much as possible in selling ads. This business model ultimately rewarded politicians and media companies for creating controversial content in which they plunge into imaginary enemies. “

While studying the use of emojis on Facebook, the team found that, on average, messages about political opponents attracted twice as many angry-faced emojis than messages from the “inner group” derived from heart-related emojis. The results show that changing algorithms to measure “deeper” engagement such as reactions and comments in the hopes of bringing people together, as Facebook announced in 2018, may actually prioritize messages filled with “outgroup hostility”.

* According to information from the University of Cambridge.