AI Insight
This study examined how online group polarization emerges around sports events by analyzing 24 high-profile cases using qualitative comparative analysis. The researchers identified five distinct pathways leading to polarization, driven by two main mechanisms: a "sensitive issues–emotional narrative" mechanism and a "non-sensitive issues–capital involvement" mechanism. Seven key factors were found to contribute to polarization, including political triggers, media narrative framing, opinion leaders, capital intervention, media type, event characteristics, and stakeholder participation.
Why it matters
Understanding these pathways can help social media platforms, sports organizations, and policymakers develop targeted strategies to prevent or mitigate toxic polarization around sporting events. The findings provide a framework for digital public opinion governance that accounts for different combinations of triggering factors rather than single causes.
Understand the Science
by Jianshan Bai, Deping Hu, Tao Wang
Online group polarization surrounding sports events has emerged as a significant challenge for digital public opinion governance. Drawing on social combustion theory, the study identifies seven explanatory conditions: political triggers, news narrative frames, opinion leaders, capital intervention, first media, event attributes, and stakeholder participation. Using a sample of 24 recent high-profile sporting events, the study employs crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (cs QCA) to investigate the configurational pathways leading to online group polarization and to generate insights for its mitigation. The findings identify five distinct pathways through which online group polarization in sports events emerges, revealing two underlying generative mechanisms. The first is the “sensitive issues–emotional narrative” mechanism, while the second is the “non-sensitive issues–capital involvement” mechanism.
Source: Pathways to the emergence of online group polarization in sports events