Effect of Network Homophily and Partisanship on Social Media to “Oil Spill†Polarizations

Recent research has been conducted on "oil spill polarization," whereby preferences for topics that are not inherently politically nuanced become polarized based on political identity. Previous studies that explored the mechanisms of oil spill polarization through simulations demonstrated that this phenomenon occurs among intense partisans. However, empirical studies have shown that oil spill polarization occurs even among the general public and individuals with relatively moderate partisan identities, indicating a divergence between the simulation results and the phenomena observed in reality. We hypothesize that this discrepancy might be because of network homophily, a phenomenon often observed in social media communication. To address this, we conducted experiments using a multi-agent simulation model that implements network construction based on homophily. Our findings indicate that, when network construction is based on homophily, oil spill polarization arises among moderate partisans and diverse partisans.