Homophilia, affective polarisation and misinformation on Twitter. Case study on the #Openarms migration crisis

• Main Authors: Joaquín Castillo-de-Mesa, Paula Méndez-Domínguez, Domingo Carbonero-Muñoz, Luis Gómez-Jacinto
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2021-03-01
• Series: REDES: Revista Hispana para el Análisis de Redes Sociales
• Subjects: crisis migratoria; redes sociales online; homofilia; desinformación; polarización afectiva
• Online Access: https://revistes.uab.cat/redes/article/view/913
• ISSN: 2385-4626; 1579-0185

The Mediterranean is one of the deadliest migratory routes in the world and has once again become the center of controversy in relation to the performance of the Spanish ship Open Arms. This ship, after rescueing migrants from the sea, was on a crossing for nineteen days, institutionally blocked and involved in diplomatic disputes in the European Union. As a reaction, the citizens, different social actors and the NGO OpenArms made use of this social networking site Twitter to exchange information and express their opinions and feelings in relation to the migratory phenomenon. This study analyzes the connectivity and interaction patterns of Twitter users around the #Openarms hashtag. Massive samples of tweets have been collected using extraction techniques. Through the analysis of social networks, the social actors with the greatest leadership were identified. Communities have been detected by means of the modularity algorithm, whose content has been interpreted by netnography. The results show how users of the analyzed online social network tend to congregate around those who share the same beliefs, forming the so-called echo chambers. The interaction based on this event aroused collective emotional states that gave rise to filter bubbles that promoted disinformation and polarization between communities.