From Filter Bubble to Social Divide: Social Polarisation in Europe and Japan

The widespread adoption of social media platforms has often been implicated in discussions about growing polarisation in many nations, with terms like ‘filter bubble’ being coined to describe the algorithmic balkanisation of information and opinion which occurs around users of these platforms. We propose that social media can also provide a window into the detailed mechanisms of polarisation in different nations. As most users engage with a range of topics and interests on social media – not just politics – we can use their following networks to observe which spheres of social and cultural life are polarised along political lines and which remain largely overlapping. A study of Twitter users in three European nations (Ireland, Belgium and Italy) and Japan reveals a wide variety of patterns of social polarisation. While Ireland and Japan have generally low levels of social polarisation, and Italy and Belgium have high levels, the types of Twitter accounts which polarise users in each nation range from journalists to celebrities, sports personalities, and historians, revealing that each country’s social polarisation is the outcome of a complex set of social, cultural and historical processes.