Segregation and polarization in urban areas
Name
Segregation and polarization in urban areas.pdf
Size
2.56 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1ea50f7e5684305edac937a85c11bab7
Author(s)
Morales, Alfredo J.
Dong, Xiaowen
Bar-Yam, Yaneer
Pentland, Alex
Date Issued
October 23, 2019
Publisher
Royal Society Open Science
Citation
Morales, A. J., Dong, X., Bar-Yam, Y., & ‘Sandy’Pentland, A. (2019). Segregation and polarization in urban areas. Royal Society Open Science, 6(10), 190573.
Abstract
Social behaviours emerge from the exchange of information among individuals—constrained by and reciprocally influencing the structure of information flows. The Internet radically transformed communication by democratizing broadcast capabilities and enabling easy and borderless formation of new acquaintances. However, actual information flows are heterogeneous and confined to self-organized echo-chambers. Of central importance to the future of society is understanding how existing physical segregation affects online social fragmentation. Here, we show that the virtual space is a reflection of the geographical space where physical interactions and proximity-based social learning are the main transmitters of ideas. We show that online interactions are segregated by income just as physical interactions are, and that physical separation reflects polarized behaviours beyond culture or politics. Our analysis is consistent with theoretical concepts suggesting polarization is associated with social exposure that reinforces within-group homogenization and between-group differentiation, and they together promote social fragmentation in mirrored physical and virtual spaces.
MIT Department
MIT Connection Science (Research institute)
Terms of Use
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
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