Anyone with a passing interest in following politics on social media will know that it’s a combative place. It’s perhaps no surprise, therefore, that researchers from the University of Cambridge found that politicians can secure viral success by mocking their opponents online. Indeed, the study found that such posts generally secure twice as many shares as those that champion people or ideas from one’s own political tribe.
The findings emerged after an analysis of around 2.7 million social media posts made by either Members of Congress or media outlets in the US.
As well as poking fun at opponents, even the mere mention of a rival politician or worldview increased the chances of that post being shared by 67%.
Viral content
Previous research has highlighted the important role emotive language can play in social content going viral, especially if the emotions are negative. The latest study highlights how this can be especially pertinent when the posts reference the political outgroup. Indeed, posts referencing opponents were seven times more effective than those containing moral emotional language. It’s a finding that creates a rational basis for the combative and often polemic nature of political discourse online.
“Slamming the political opposition was the most powerful predictor of a post going viral out of all those we measured. This was the case for both Republican and Democrat-leaning media outlets and politicians on Facebook and Twitter,” the researchers say.
“Social media keeps us engaged as much as possible to sell advertising. This business model has ended up rewarding politicians and media companies for producing divisive content in which they dunk on perceived enemies.”
Bringing people together
It underlines the difficulty in bringing society together, as the researchers highlight how changes to the social media algorithms to prioritize those posts with deep engagement may actually result in fuelling outgroup animosity.
“We are told we need to escape our online echo chambers,” the researchers continue. “Yet if we do start to follow a diverse range of accounts we encounter waves of negativity about our own social group due to the viral nature of hostile posts.”
The researchers believe that their work is among the first to utilize big data to explore the way in which ingroup and outgroup psychology fuels viral content online.
“Viral content can help campaigns or social movements to succeed,” the researchers conclude. “But when hostile and hyper-partisan language is most likely to go viral, generating superficial engagement may ultimately harm politics and society.”
If the social platforms truly want to create an environment for constructive debate that brings society together, then it seems vital that they find a way to better reward more constructive content so that our feeds aren’t over-run by posts that do little but fuel political animosity.
