Investigating political polarization in India through the lens of Twitter.

Abstract

Social media plays a pivotal role in shaping communication among political entities. Substantial research has been carried out for examining the impact of politicians’ social media usage and interactions on political polarization. Analysing political polarization is particularly significant for fragmented political systems like India where collaboration between parties is essential for winning support in parliament. Different topics of discussion between political entities may induce different levels of polarization. This study aims to examine the presence of polarization on Twitter social media platform with respect to different topics of political discussions among Indian politicians. The investigation is based upon two conflicting notions about social media in influencing political polarization. The first notion regards social media as a medium for interaction between different ideological users. The second opinion on the other hand focuses on prevalence of selective exposure in social media leading to polarization. The study will investigate the use of Twitter for forming communication ties in and between parties and the extent of divergence of opinions during political discourse. The investigation performs social network analysis and content analysis of the tweets posted by Indian politicians during some major events in India from 2019 to 2021. For an unbiased topic-specific analysis of polarization, some important topics related to Indian government policies, national security and natural disaster events have been considered. The findings of the study suggest that Twitter not only opens up communication spaces to Indian political users but also makes online political discussions among them polarized. Moreover, the extent of polarization varies with respect to topics of political discussions. Polarization is more for controversial and debatable topics than non-controversial ones.