ArticleInternational journal of information management2021
The effect of toxicity on COVID-19 news network formation in political subcommunities on Reddit: An affiliation network approach.
Article in International journal of information management, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Drivers of health polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.Science advances · 2025Pooled it
- Toxicity on Social Media During the 2022 Mpox Public Health Emergency: Quantitative Study of Topical and Network Dynamics.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Infodemic: Challenges and solutions in topic discovery and data process.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2023Article
- Adverse consequences of emotional support seeking through social network sites in coping with stress from a global pandemic.International journal of information management · 2022Article
- Article
- How is COVID-19 altering the manufacturing landscape? A literature review of imminent challenges and management interventions.Annals of operations research · 2021Article
- Evolution and differentiation of the cybersecurity communities in three social question and answer sites: A mixed-methods analysis.PloS one · 2021Article
- Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the media Health Literacy Questionnaire: A validation study.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Political polarization remains perhaps the "greatest barrier" to effective COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures in the United States. Social media has been implicated in fueling this polarization. In this paper, we uncover the network of COVID-19 related news sources shared to 30 politically biased and 2 neutral subcommunities on Reddit. We find, using exponential random graph modeling, that news sources associated with highly toxic - "rude, disrespectful" - content are more likely to be shared across political subreddits. We also find homophily according to toxicity levels in the network of online news sources. Our findings suggest that news sources associated with high toxicity are rewarded with prominent positions in the resultant network. The toxicity in COVID-19 discussions may fuel political polarization by denigrating ideological opponents and politicizing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, all to the detriment of mitigation measures. Public health practitioners should monitor toxicity in public online discussions to familiarize themselves with emerging political arguments that threaten adherence to public health crises management. We also recommend, based on our findings, that social media platforms algorithmically promote neutral and scientific news sources to reduce toxic discussion in subcommunities and encourage compliance with public health recommendations in the fight against COVID-19.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.