An understanding of the political polarization on Reddit : A qualitative analysis of political polarization on Reddit

The political polarization is considered to have increased in recent decades, which is considered a threat to democracy. Polarization is the process by which the normal diversity of differences in a society conforms more closely to a single dimension, where people perceive and describe politics and society in terms of "us" and "them". There are two distinct forms of political polarization, which are affective and ideological polarization. Ideological polarization is the difference between political beliefs, attitudes and positions of political opponents and affective polarization asses the extent to which people like their political allies and dislike their political opponents. A higher level of polarization can be beneficial to society, as it can contribute to higher levels of political participation and a perception that there are choices. However, this process can also entail disadvantages for democracy, by increasing the centralization of power and making citizens more dissatisfied. In addition, there are also described interpersonal implications of polarization, which include a reluctance to interact with and dehumanization of poltical opponents. Previous research that investigated the political polarization on social media has mainly focused on Twitter and Facebook, thus it was considered relevant to what the polarization looks like on Reddit instead. This platform has a different structure and also describes itself as being at the forefront of the internet. It was focused on two communities, where on community was skeptic and the other convinced of the climate issue. It could be seen here that there were primarly traces of affective polarization, as there was a certain reluctance to interact with one's political opponents. The mechanism of polarization that could mainly be deciphered was confirmation bias, as a preference for interaction with those with like-minded views could be made clear. Traces of echo chambers and filter bubbles could also be discerned, which are alos mechanisms that can also lead to further polarization.