BPCPPDYSOE21 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 9: Opinion Formation

SOE 9.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 11:20–11:40, SOEa

Ideological differences in engagement in public debate on Twitter — •Felix Gaisbauer, Armin Pournaki, Sven Banisch, and Eckehard Olbrich — Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Inselstrasse 22, 04103 Leipzig

We analyse public debate on Twitter via network representations of retweets and replies. We show that through the interplay of the two networks, it is possible to identify ideological differences in activity patterns between different opinion groups on the platform. The method is employed to observe public debate about two events: The Saxon state elections and violent riots in the city of Leipzig in 2019. We show that in both cases, (i) opinion groups differ in their propensities to get involved in debate, and therefore have unequal impact on public opinion. Users retweeting far-right parties and politicians are significantly more active, hence their positions are disproportionately visible. (ii) Said users act significantly more confrontational, as becomes visible in the local assortativity distribution of the reply network, while other opinion groups tend to debate largely amongst themselves.