Polarizing Tweets on Climate Change

TL;DR

This paper analyzes polarized Twitter conversations during COP24, revealing group-specific communication patterns, the role of bots, and source concentration differences between climate change believers and skeptics.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for analyzing polarized online debates and provides empirical insights into the communication dynamics of climate change discourse on Twitter.

Findings

Disbelievers talk more within their group than with Believers.

Disbelievers focus on attacking Believers, while Believers call for action.

Bots are equally active among both groups, with Disbelievers sourcing news from fewer outlets.

Abstract

We introduce a framework to analyze the conversation between two competing groups of Twitter users, one who believe in the anthropogenic causes of climate change (Believers) and a second who are skeptical (Disbelievers). As a case study, we use Climate Change related tweets during the United Nation's (UN) Climate Change Conference - COP24 (2018), Katowice, Poland. We find that both Disbelievers and Believers talk within their group more than with the other group; this is more so the case for Disbelievers than for Believers. The Disbeliever messages focused more on attacking those personalities that believe in the anthropogenic causes of climate change. On the other hand, Believer messages focused on calls to combat climate change. We find that in both Disbelievers and Believers bot-like accounts were equally active and that unlike Believers, Disbelievers get their news from a concentrated number of news sources.