Network analysis reveals news press landscape and asymmetric user polarization

TL;DR

This study analyzes structural and emotional polarization among Korean online news users during the 2022 election, revealing echo chambers and asymmetric affective interactions through large-scale network analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive network analysis of user comments to uncover polarization, echo chambers, and interaction asymmetries in online news engagement.

Findings

Identification of two opposing political user groups.

Existence of echo chambers within co-commenting networks.

Asymmetric affective interaction patterns between groups.

Abstract

Unlike traditional media, online news platforms allow users to consume content that suits their tastes and to facilitate interactions with other people. However, as more personalized consumption of information and interaction with like-minded users increase, ideological bias can inadvertently increase and contribute to the formation of echo chambers, reinforcing the polarization of opinions. Although the structural characteristics of polarization among different ideological groups in online spaces have been extensively studied, research into how these groups emotionally interact with each other has not been as thoroughly explored. From this perspective, we investigate both structural and affective polarization between news media user groups on Naver News, South Korea's largest online news portal, during the period of 2022 Korean presidential election. By utilizing the dataset comprising 333,014 articles and over 36 million user comments, we uncover two distinct groups of users characterized by opposing political leanings and reveal significant bias and polarization among them. Additionally, we reveal the existence of echo chambers within co-commenting networks and investigate the asymmetric affective interaction patterns between the two polarized groups. Classification task of news media articles based on the distinct comment response patterns support the notion that different political groups may employ distinct communication strategies. Our approach based on network analysis on large-scale comment dataset offers novel insights into characteristics of user polarization in the online news platforms and the nuanced interaction nature between user groups.