Germany, India, Mexico, and Spain. As multiparty democracies, these countries present a more complex picture of what brings people together—or divides them. Using social media data, a group of researchers proposes a novel approach to measuring polarization in nations with multiple political parties.
Complexity Science Hub scientist Samuel Martín-Gutiérrez and his colleagues developed a model that infers opinions from social networks, and measures the left-right political division, as well as other more nuanced sources of tension. They analyzed Twitter data from the Spanish elections of 2015 and 2019.
“It’s important to understand polarization in our society, and our findings shed new light on how political beliefs are shaped,” says Martín-Gutiérrez. “Our approach can lead to useful insights when applied to real-world debates happening on social media.”
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