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Social-Judgment-Based Modeling of Opinion Polarization in Chinese Live Streaming Platforms

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Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling (SBP-BRiMS 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12720))

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Abstract

Live streaming platforms have become popular media for young people in China to interact with others. While the synchronized interaction with live streamers through comments is said to make users feel more engaged than simply watching a video, it also brings the risk of online violence when the words become highly negative. By integrating the social-judgment-based opinion dynamic model (SJBO) with other theories like information overload and entertainment motivation, I modeled the opinion evolution during live streaming to analyze the opinion polarization. When no extremists exist initially, the simulation results reveal the possibility of opinion polarization when the audiences have low thresholds for repulsion. When positive and negative extremists are involved initially, the results suggest that their proportions among the audiences are responsible for the ratios of the positive or negative polarization of the ordinary audiences, which verifies the rationale of controlling the number of extremists to reduce opinion polarization. The impacts from other model parameters are also discussed in the research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Qualitative polarization tendencies are shown after 600 steps in most cases, and a fixed period also ensures the validity of the comparison between different parametric settings.

  2. 2.

    The heat-maps for NPR show the opposite trend, omitted due to the page limit.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Yutao Chen

Authors
  1. Yutao Chen
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Correspondence to Yutao Chen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA

    Robert Thomson

  2. University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA

    Muhammad Nihal Hussain

  3. Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA

    Christopher Dancy

  4. United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA

    Aryn Pyke

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Chen, Y. (2021). Social-Judgment-Based Modeling of Opinion Polarization in Chinese Live Streaming Platforms. In: Thomson, R., Hussain, M.N., Dancy, C., Pyke, A. (eds) Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling. SBP-BRiMS 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12720. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80387-2_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80387-2_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80386-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80387-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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