Table 11.
Selected studies on the key constructs
| Sources | Key highlights |
|---|---|
| Polarization | |
| Baldassarri and Bearman (2007) | Discusses the dynamics surrounding polarization through two paradoxes, namely the simultaneous presence and absence of attitude polarization and social polarization. |
| Iyengar et al. (2012) | Demonstrates an increasing dislike and loathing of opponents by the political factions in the United States with partisan effect found inconsistently in policy attitudes. |
| Gruzd and Roy (2014) | Examines user engagement on Twitter as a social media platform and posits that discussions on the forum may embed partisan loyalties and contribute to political polarization. |
| Boxell et al. (2017) | Examines relationship between internet and social media usage and polarization and finds increase in polarization among groups with least likelihood of usage of these technologies. |
| McCoy et al. (2018) | Posits a set of causal patterns to establish links between polarization and impact on democracies coupled with illustrations from four nations as cases. |
| Enders and Armaly (2019) | Finds individual-level differences in actual and perceived polarization in terms of their links to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of normative interest. |
| de Bruin et al. (2020) | Examines political polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic and found variations in risk perception and risk mitigation preferences based on political inclination. |
| Piazza (2020) | Highlights the mediating role of polarization in the impact of hate speech on domestic terrorism. |
| Hawdon et al. (2020) | Examines likelihood of polarization based on exposure to traditional and social media and further investigates influence of polarization on social capital. |
| Heaney (2020) | Highlights the role of political polarization as a key factor contributing to the ubiquity of protests in the United States. |
| Arbatli and Rosenberg (2021) | Examine links between polarization and government intimidation of opposition by creating a new measure of political polarization. |
| Levin et al. (2021) | Discusses the dynamics surrounding political polarization through an interdisciplinary approach and highlights the interplay of several processes at various levels in the context of this phenomenon |
| Casola et al. (2022) | Finds increasing levels of political polarization surrounding the perceived importance of conservation issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Frasz (2022) | Highlights the role of increased censorship efforts by governments and other agents in exacerbating political polarization among the citizens |
| Leonard et al. (2021) | Examines drivers of political polarization and factors which account for its asymmetry as a phenomenon. |
| Argyle and Pope (2022) | Examines links between polarization and political participation finding a higher likelihood of political participation by people with more extreme attitudes. |
| Ertan et al. (2023) | Highlights the issue of political polarization during extreme events and its negative impact on response and recovery operations. |
| Patkós (2023) | Highlights the need for a relook at polarization indices in light of an attention shift from ideological aspects to partisan and affective aspects and introduces a partisan polarization index, and compares it with other indices. |
| Political disinformation | |
| Levendusky (2013) | Highlights the role of partisan media outlets and slanted news presentations in leading viewers to develop more negative perceptions and lower trust for other parties alongside lower support for bipartisanship. |
| Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) | Discusses economics of fake news in light of concerns expressed over falsehood amidst the 2016 U.S. presidential elections with a key finding being that people believed stories favoring their preferred political candidate. |
| Tandoc et al. (2018) | Defines a typology of fake news based on level of factivity and deception. |
| Bradshaw and Howard (2018) | Highlights concerns over the use of social media for propaganda and analyzes how states and political parties are using these platforms to shape public opinions at home and on foreign soil. |
| Freelon and Wells (2020) | Discusses sociopolitical factors contributing to disinformation in recent times. |
| Humprecht et al. (2020) | Recognizes the menace of disinformation in democracies and analyzes conditions that contribute to resilience to disinformation through a cross-country study. |
| Au et al. (2021) | Proposes a multi-stage model depicting the pathways from online misinformation and fake news toward ideological polarization. |
| Serrano-Puche (2021) | Highlights the reliance of fake news on emotionally provocative content to induce outrage and its subsequent virality on platforms. |
| Soares and Recuero (2021) | Analyzes political disinformation during the 2018 presidential elections in Brazil and the role of hyper-partisan outlets in shaping discursive struggles and strategies used for dissemination of disinformation. |
| Bringula et al. (2022) | Analyzes factors that contribute to individuals’ susceptibility to disinformation. |
| Piazza (2022) | Highlights role of disinformation in fueling domestic tourism with political polarization mediating the relationship. |
| Shu (2022) | Provides a computational perspective on combating disinformation on digital media. |
| Davidson and Kobayashi (2022) | Investigates individual differences in recall and recognition based on exposure to factually correct and false content. |
| Pentney (2022) | Draws attention to government disinformation which is comparatively less discussed as opposed to other forms of disinformation, and discusses it in conjunction with its regulation and freedom of expression. |
| Hate speech | |
| Papacharissi (2004) | Analyzes messages on political newsgroups online and finds most messages being civil in nature while suggesting that the absence of face-to-face interaction may have resulted in heated discussions. |
| Waldron (2012) | Sheds light on the perils of hate speech and underscores the need for its regulation. |
| Cohen-Almagor (2014) | Defines hate speech (examines how hate speech proliferates on the internet and discusses how the issue can be mitigated. |
| Iginio et al. (2015) | Discusses measures to counter hate speech on the digital channels. |
| Howard (2019) | Contends that the debate on banning hate speech needs disaggregation and discusses the phenomenon alongside freedom of expression. |
| Bilewicz and Soral (2020) | Highlights the impact of hate speech on emotions and behaviors and its influence in breeding intergroup contempt and desensitizing people which reduces the ability to recognize the offensive character of such language. |
| Paz et al. (2020) | Analyzes hate speech discussions, particularly in the legal and communication fields through a review of literature. |
| Piazza (2020) | Finds the role of hate speech by political personalities in boosting online terrorism with the relationship mediated by political polarization. |
| Kojan et al. (2020) | Examines the role of counter-speech as a mechanism in bolstering public deliberation and reducing polarization. |
| Matamoros-Fernández and Farkas (2021) | Reviews literature on hate speech and racism in the context of social media research. |
| Ali et al. (2022) | Discusses methods for hate speech detection on Twitter as a social media platform. |
| García-Díaz et al. (2022) | Analyzes strategies involving feature combinations to detect hate speech in the Spanish language. |
| Internet censorship and social media monitoring | |
| Lyon (2007) | Draws on global examples to analyze surveillance and offers tools for analyzing surveillance trends. |
| Marwick (2012) | Discusses the framing of social surveillance and its distinctions from traditional surveillance along the axes of power (hierarchy and reciprocity |
| Arsan (2013) | Examines censorship and self-censorship in Turkey based on the experiences of journalists in the region. |
| Westcott and Owen (2013) | Examines how lateral surveillance can be leveraged to initiate friendships on social networks with Twitter as the platform. |
| Richards (2013) | Recognizes the harms of surveillance and discusses legal aspects in light of the need to preserve civil liberties |
| Staples (2014) | Discusses surveillance alongside the rise of social media and the impact of surveillance on how we comprehend individuals and our lives. |
| Trottier (2016) | Describes growing social media monitoring practices as a central tenet of surveillance |
| Busch et al. (2018) | Examines internet censorship efforts through blocking mechanisms in liberal democracies |
| Kruse et al. (2018) | Highlights that social media users do not engage in communicative action online due to fear of being surveilled and engage only with politically similar individuals. |
| Chang and Lin (2020) | Demonstrates the use of internet censorship as a reactive mechanism in autocracies to suppress civil society |
| Cobbe (2021) | Discusses algorithm-driven censorship on social media platforms as an approach to content moderation. |
| Büchi et al. (2022) | Discusses the negative impact of surveillance and collection of digital traces on individuals’ communication behaviors online. |
| Chan et al. (2022) | Finds links between surveillance and censorship with varying levels engendering or suppressing political engagement in different ways |
| Zhai et al. (2022) | Discusses the prevalence of internet surveillance and examine the reasons why certain individuals approve of such practices involving censorship and surveillance. |