Exploring How Homophily and Accessibility Can Facilitate Polarization in Social Networks

Cameron Taylor,Alexander Mantzaris,Ivan Garibay

doi:10.3390/info9120325

Cameron Taylor, Alexander Mantzaris + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/info9120325

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Journal: Information	Publication Date: Dec 14, 2018
Citations: 14	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Central Florida

Abstract

Polarization in online social networks has gathered a significant amount of attention in the research community and in the public sphere due to stark disagreements with millions of participants on topics surrounding politics, climate, the economy and other areas where an agreement is required. This work investigates into greater depth a type of model that can produce ideological segregation as a result of polarization depending on the strength of homophily and the ability of users to access similar minded individuals. Whether increased access can induce larger amounts of societal separation is important to investigate, and this work sheds further insight into the phenomenon. Center to the hypothesis of homophilic alignments in friendship generation is that of a discussion group or community. These are modeled and the investigation into their effect on the dynamics of polarization is presented. The social implications demonstrate that initial phases of an ideological exchange can result in increased polarization, although a consensus in the long run is expected and that the separation between groups is amplified when groups are constructed with ideological homophilic preferences.

Highlights

Ideological polarization has been addressed as a potential problem for healthy societies
The main feature that differentiates the two models is that the extension accounts for the membership of users in discussion groups, in which the participation is associated with a homophilic interaction
A comparison was made as to what impact this can make upon the trajectories of the simulation that are based upon the Binary Voter Model (BVM)

Summary

Introduction

Ideological polarization has been addressed as a potential problem for healthy societies. There has been an increase in the attention given to the subject in recent years with a particular focus on various political disagreements and how to resolve them. These considerations have been modeled in various paradigms such as the spatial segregation model [1] (Schelling model), direct survey analysis [2], ideological exchanges [3,4,5], as well as other approaches. The question explored here is whether there is valid concern that a combination of access to a larger size of potential friends with tendencies towards homophily (ideological) can produce a network that is more polarized than if the accessibility were more constrained to a set of random set of associations (local view).

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