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Computational Analysis of Online Polarization in Longitudinal Social Interaction Data

This seminar session will be presented by Emma Fraxanet. It will focus on the analysis of online political polarisation as a context-dependent and evolving phenomenon.

Event, Research Seminar

Salle K.011, 1 place Saint Thomas d'Aquin 75007 Paris

Abstract

This talk examines how political polarization manifests and evolves in online environments using large-scale, longitudinal social media data. Instead of treating polarization as a single metric, it focuses on the diverse behavioral signatures through which it appears, including ideological audience segregation and antagonistic interaction dynamics. I will introduce a framework based on signed network analysis, applied across multiple platforms and national contexts, including a new decade-long dataset from an Austrian news forum. I will also present the first large-scale longitudinal analysis of audience polarization on Facebook, tracing changing engagement patterns with news content and their relationship to potential algorithmic changes. Together, these findings offer empirical insights and methodological tools to better understand polarization as a context-dependent and evolving phenomenon.

Biography

Emma Fraxanet is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Computational Social Sciences and Humanities Lab at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Her work focuses on online polarization, signed social networks, and large-scale analyses of user behavior in digital platforms. She combines computational methods, network science, and longitudinal datasets to study ideological segregation, platform dynamics, and the societal impact of digital media systems. Emma completed her PhD at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2025, where her research contributed new curated data and analytical frameworks for understanding complex social systems online.

Practical information

This seminar will be held in person and in English, on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM, in Room K.011, 1 Place Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, 75007 Paris.

Registration is mandatory via this link.