Echo Chambers within the Russo-Ukrainian War: The Role of Bipartisan Users

TL;DR

This paper investigates the presence of echo chambers on Twitter during the Russo-Ukrainian war, highlighting bipartisan users who change opinions and their role in fostering diverse discourse.

Contribution

It reveals the existence of bipartisan users who vary opinions and analyzes their influence on social media discussions about the war.

Findings

Bipartisan users exist and change opinions during the invasion.

Bipartisan users play a key role in communication networks.

Features distinguish bipartisan users from others.

Abstract

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has been extensively discussed on social media. One commonly observed problem in such discussions is the emergence of echo chambers, where users are rarely exposed to opinions outside their worldview. Prior literature on this topic has assumed that such users hold a single consistent view. However, recent work has revealed that complex topics (such as the war) often trigger bipartisanship among certain people. With this in mind, we study the presence of echo chambers on Twitter related to the Russo-Ukrainian war. We measure their presence and identify an important subset of bipartisan users who vary their opinions during the invasion. We explore the role they play in the communications graph and identify features that distinguish them from remaining users. We conclude by discussing their importance and how they can improve the quality of discourse surrounding the war.