{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,23]],"date-time":"2026-02-23T11:32:40Z","timestamp":1771846360000,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,24]],"date-time":"2025-09-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1758672000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Concerns about polarization and hate speech on social media are widespread. Affective polarization, i.e., hostility among partisans, is crucial in this regard as it links political disagreements to hostile language online. However, only a few methods are available to measure how affectively polarized an online debate is, and the existing approaches do not investigate jointly two defining features of affective polarization: hostility and social distance. To address this methodological gap, we propose a network-based measure of affective polarization that combines both aspects \u2013 which allows them to be studied independently. We show that our measure accurately captures the relation between the level of disagreement and the hostility expressed towards others (affective component) and whom individuals choose to interact with or avoid (social distance component). Applying our measure to a large-scale Twitter data set on COVID-19, we find that affective polarization was low in February 2020 and increased to high levels as more users joined the Twitter discussion in the following months.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0328210","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,24]],"date-time":"2025-09-24T17:38:52Z","timestamp":1758735532000},"page":"e0328210","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Estimating affective polarization on a social network"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1625-2435","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Marilena","family":"Hohmann","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5984-5137","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Michele","family":"Coscia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,24]]},"reference":[{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0328210.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"129","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev-polisci-051117-073034","article-title":"The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States","volume":"22","author":"S Iyengar","year":"2019","journal-title":"Annual Review of Political Science"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0328210.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"114","DOI":"10.1093\/poq\/nfz003","article-title":"What do we measure when we measure affective polarization?","volume":"83","author":"JN Druckman","year":"2019","journal-title":"Public Opinion Quarterly"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0328210.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"189","DOI":"10.1017\/psrm.2019.18","article-title":"Policy over party: comparing the effects of candidate ideology and party on affective polarization","volume":"9","author":"Y Lelkes","year":"2021","journal-title":"Political Science Research and Methods"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0328210.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"376","DOI":"10.1177\/00936502211042516","article-title":"\u201cBe Nice or Leave Me Alone\u201d: an intergroup perspective on affective polarization in online political discussions","volume":"49","author":"N Marchal","year":"2021","journal-title":"Communication Research"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0328210.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/s13278-021-00792-6","article-title":"Heated conversations in a warming world: affective polarization in online climate change discourse follows real-world climate anomalies","volume":"11","author":"A Tyagi","year":"2021","journal-title":"Social Network Analysis and Mining"},{"key":"pone.0328210.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"98","DOI":"10.1080\/10584609.2020.1785067","article-title":"Political polarization on the digital sphere: a cross-platform, over-time analysis of interactional, positional, and affective polarization on social media","volume":"38","author":"M Yarchi","year":"2021","journal-title":"Political Communication"},{"key":"pone.0328210.ref007","article-title":"Affective and interactional polarization align across countries","author":"M Falkenberg","year":"2023"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0328210.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1038\/s44260-024-00008-w","article-title":"Affective polarization and dynamics of information spread in online networks","volume":"1","author":"K Lerman","year":"2024","journal-title":"NPJ Complexity"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0328210.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"405","DOI":"10.1093\/poq\/nfs038","article-title":"Affect, not ideology","volume":"76","author":"S Iyengar","year":"2012","journal-title":"Public Opinion Quarterly"},{"key":"pone.0328210.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mentzer K, Fallon K, Prichard J, Yates DJ. 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