The impact of Social Networks on political movements and the Polarization

Abstract

Abstract
The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of social media on politics in order to understand the structure of polarization in digital political discourse. To achieve this, a mixed-methods approach was established, involving the processing of metadata using R Studio and its Bibliometrix library, along with an analytical review of context-specific scholarly references. The results indicate that the emotionalization of discourse is a tactic used to produce political polarization on social media. As an example, the co-occurrence network analysis reveals that terms such as “emotion” are closely linked to “social media” and “polarization,” which suggests a communication strategy based on eliciting immediate emotional reactions rather than rational arguments. Some authors confirm this trend by showing how, in the Dutch Parliament, digital interactions reinforce not only ideological divisions, but also divisions based on gender, age, and ethnicity.