IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hin/complx/5854037.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Opinion Polarization during a Dichotomous Electoral Process

Author

Listed:
  • G. Olivares
  • J. P. Cárdenas
  • J. C. Losada
  • J. Borondo

Abstract

Political polarization can emerge on electoral campaigns where the population faces a dichotomous decision, with only two voting alternatives. In this paper, we analyze the Twitter conversation around the second round of the 2017 Chilean elections, where voters had to choose between the final two candidates. First, we have estimated the opinions of Twitter users obtaining a distribution of opinions for each day. Next, we have measured the resulting political polarization from the cited opinion distributions and track its evolution during a full week that includes the voting day. We found the conversation to be highly polarized, reaching its maximum during the previous day to the election and significantly decreasing the day after due to the presence of new users who only participated during that day.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Olivares & J. P. Cárdenas & J. C. Losada & J. Borondo, 2019. "Opinion Polarization during a Dichotomous Electoral Process," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-9, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:hin:complx:5854037
    DOI: 10.1155/2019/5854037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/8503/2019/5854037.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/8503/2019/5854037.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1155/2019/5854037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borondo, J. & Morales, A.J. & Benito, R.M. & Losada, J.C., 2015. "Multiple leaders on a multilayer social media," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 90-98.
    2. Juan Pablo Cárdenas & Gerardo Vidal & Carolina Urbina & Gastón Olivares & Pablo Rodrigo & Miguel Fuentes, 2018. "Social Crises: Signatures of Complexity in a Fast-Growing Economy," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-11, April.
    3. Morales, A.J. & Losada, J.C. & Benito, R.M., 2012. "Users structure and behavior on an online social network during a political protest," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(21), pages 5244-5253.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin-Gutierrez, Samuel & Losada, Juan C. & Benito, Rosa M., 2023. "Multipolar social systems: Measuring polarization beyond dichotomous contexts," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Borondo, J. & Morales, A.J. & Benito, R.M. & Losada, J.C., 2014. "Mapping the online communication patterns of political conversations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 414(C), pages 403-413.
    2. Urman, Aleksandra & Ho, Justin Chun-ting & Katz, Stefan, 2020. "“No Central Stage”: Telegram-based activity during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong," SocArXiv ueds4, Center for Open Science.
    3. Miguel Fuentes & Juan Pablo Cárdenas & Carolina Urbina & Gerardo Vidal & Gastón Olivares & Diego Lawler & Edmundo Bustos Azocar & Eric Rasmussen, 2023. "Alignment between United Nations Environmental Assembly Guidance and National Research Priorities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-25, February.
    4. Xiong, Xi & Li, Yuanyuan & Qiao, Shaojie & Han, Nan & Wu, Yue & Peng, Jing & Li, Binyong, 2018. "An emotional contagion model for heterogeneous social media with multiple behaviors," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 490(C), pages 185-202.
    5. Borondo, J. & Morales, A.J. & Benito, R.M. & Losada, J.C., 2015. "Multiple leaders on a multilayer social media," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 90-98.
    6. Liu, Yang & Wei, Bo & Du, Yuxian & Xiao, Fuyuan & Deng, Yong, 2016. "Identifying influential spreaders by weight degree centrality in complex networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-7.
    7. Martin-Gutierrez, Samuel & Losada, Juan C. & Benito, Rosa M., 2023. "Multipolar social systems: Measuring polarization beyond dichotomous contexts," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    8. Liu, Xiaoyang & He, Daobing & Liu, Chao, 2018. "Modeling information dissemination and evolution in time-varying online social network based on thermal diffusion motion," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 510(C), pages 456-476.
    9. S. Martin-Gutierrez & J. C. Losada & R. M. Benito, 2018. "Recurrent Patterns of User Behavior in Different Electoral Campaigns: A Twitter Analysis of the Spanish General Elections of 2015 and 2016," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-15, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hin:complx:5854037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mohamed Abdelhakeem (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.hindawi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.