Open Access Peer-reviewed Review

Studying opinion polarization on social media

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Submitted   Jul 12, 2022
Published   Aug 22, 2022
Issue    Vol 4 No 2 (2022)
DOI   10.25082/SWSW.2022.02.003

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Tianji Jiang corresponding author
Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA

Abstract

Opinion polarization on social media raises a lot of concerns today. In this study, the author provides a systematic review of publications about the issues since 2013 to show the achievements in the existing research on the topic, to sort out the relevant knowledge, and to provide some inspirations for future research in this area. This paper finds that opinion polarization on social media is initiated by three patterns of factors: increasing the homophily in discussions, increasing conflict in social media discussions, and facilitating the spread of misinformation. It also summarizes the existing findings on how to detect and measure opinion polarization in social media, and comes up with opportunities for further researches on this topic.

Keywords
opinion polarization, social media, systematic review

Article Details

How to Cite
Jiang, T. (2022). Studying opinion polarization on social media. Social Work and Social Welfare, 4(2), 232-241. https://doi.org/10.25082/SWSW.2022.02.003
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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