Political posts on social media that most frequently referenced ancient and early medieval history tended to be more extreme, hostile, and overwhelmingly negative in tone than average, finds a new study by researchers from University College London and the University of Edinburgh.
Their study, published in PLOS One, scrutinised nearly 1.5 million posts using a combination of AI, computational, and manual techniques, and used a range of sentiment analysis tools to evaluate the attitudes behind those posts that referenced Britain’s distant past.
The researchers examined often-heated debates around Brexit on Facebook as a test case to see how references to the Iron Age, Roman, and medieval periods in Britain were inserted into online political debate. Facebook users arguing for any specific side of a complex political issue were more likely to justify their positions through ‘historical thinking’ if they held extreme views.
“The ancient past is often used to express political identities,” says lead author Chiara Bonacchi of the University of Edinburgh. “Our research shows that various periods of pre-modern British history are most commonly invoked to advocate and justify negative and extreme positions. When people reference the ancient past in political debates on social media, it’s usually connected with hostile and polarised views rather than moderate ones.”
The researchers collated almost 1.5 million posts published on 364 individual Brexit-themed Facebook pages between 2015 and 2017. These posts reflected both positive and negative attitudes towards Brexit. From these, they identified more than 2,500 posts that contained at least one reference to Britain’s Iron Age, Roman, or early medieval periods.
Key terms included the names of Iron Age tribes and chiefs, Roman emperors and Anglo-Saxon kings, Roman towns, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon settlements in Britain, as well as general terms describing the period from 800 BCE to AD 800.
The researchers then used a range of language processing algorithms to gauge whether the emotion of these posts was positive, negative, or neutral, as well as the extremity of the sentiment. They also spot-checked random posts manually to ensure that the algorithms were faithfully capturing the emotions of users.
Co-author Jessica Witte, a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, added, “This study was challenging and required a combination of AI and manual analysis of text. There are a range of sentiment analysis techniques available, but these need testing to ensure they are suitable for use in a specific communication context.”
The authors conclude:
This study demonstrates that posts that reference the ancient past in political discourse on social media are significantly more negative and more extremely polarised than those that do not contain these references. We therefore conclude that heritage keywords in politically-themed debates on social media are likely to signal the presence of more polarised and, potentially, extremist views. Furthermore, we show that social media research on political uses of the past is likely to over-represent people with very strong opinions compared to individuals whose views are more moderate.
The article, “Political uses of the ancient past on social media are predominantly negative and extreme,” by Chiara Bonacchi, Jessica Witte and Mark Altaweel is published in PLOS One. Click here to read it.
Top Image: British Library MS Cotton Tiberius VI Psalter fol. 8v
Political posts on social media that most frequently referenced ancient and early medieval history tended to be more extreme, hostile, and overwhelmingly negative in tone than average, finds a new study by researchers from University College London and the University of Edinburgh.
Their study, published in PLOS One, scrutinised nearly 1.5 million posts using a combination of AI, computational, and manual techniques, and used a range of sentiment analysis tools to evaluate the attitudes behind those posts that referenced Britain’s distant past.
The researchers examined often-heated debates around Brexit on Facebook as a test case to see how references to the Iron Age, Roman, and medieval periods in Britain were inserted into online political debate. Facebook users arguing for any specific side of a complex political issue were more likely to justify their positions through ‘historical thinking’ if they held extreme views.
“The ancient past is often used to express political identities,” says lead author Chiara Bonacchi of the University of Edinburgh. “Our research shows that various periods of pre-modern British history are most commonly invoked to advocate and justify negative and extreme positions. When people reference the ancient past in political debates on social media, it’s usually connected with hostile and polarised views rather than moderate ones.”
The researchers collated almost 1.5 million posts published on 364 individual Brexit-themed Facebook pages between 2015 and 2017. These posts reflected both positive and negative attitudes towards Brexit. From these, they identified more than 2,500 posts that contained at least one reference to Britain’s Iron Age, Roman, or early medieval periods.
Key terms included the names of Iron Age tribes and chiefs, Roman emperors and Anglo-Saxon kings, Roman towns, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon settlements in Britain, as well as general terms describing the period from 800 BCE to AD 800.
The researchers then used a range of language processing algorithms to gauge whether the emotion of these posts was positive, negative, or neutral, as well as the extremity of the sentiment. They also spot-checked random posts manually to ensure that the algorithms were faithfully capturing the emotions of users.
Co-author Jessica Witte, a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, added, “This study was challenging and required a combination of AI and manual analysis of text. There are a range of sentiment analysis techniques available, but these need testing to ensure they are suitable for use in a specific communication context.”
The authors conclude:
This study demonstrates that posts that reference the ancient past in political discourse on social media are significantly more negative and more extremely polarised than those that do not contain these references. We therefore conclude that heritage keywords in politically-themed debates on social media are likely to signal the presence of more polarised and, potentially, extremist views. Furthermore, we show that social media research on political uses of the past is likely to over-represent people with very strong opinions compared to individuals whose views are more moderate.
The article, “Political uses of the ancient past on social media are predominantly negative and extreme,” by Chiara Bonacchi, Jessica Witte and Mark Altaweel is published in PLOS One. Click here to read it.
Top Image: British Library MS Cotton Tiberius VI Psalter fol. 8v
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