Cuando la negatividad es el combustible. Bots y polarización política en el debate sobre el COVID-19

  1. José Manuel Robles
  2. Juan Antonio Guevara Gil
  3. Belén Casas Mas
  4. Daniel Gómez González
Revista:
Comunicar: Revista Científica de Comunicación y Educación
  1. Cáceres Zapatero, María Dolores (coord.)
  2. Makhortykh, Mykola (coord.)
  3. Segado-Boj, Francisco (coord.)

ISSN: 1134-3478

Año de publicación: 2022

Título del ejemplar: Discursos de odio en comunicación: Investigaciones y propuestas

Número: 71

Páginas: 63-75

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.3916/C71-2022-05 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

Otras publicaciones en: Comunicar: Revista Científica de Comunicación y Educación

Resumen

Los contextos de polarización social y política están generando nuevas formas de comunicar que inciden en la esfera pública digital. En estos entornos, distintos actores sociales y políticos estarían contribuyendo a extremar sus posicionamientos, utilizando «bots» para crear espacios de distanciamiento social en los que tienen cabida el discurso del odio y la «incivility», un fenómeno que preocupa a científicos y expertos. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es analizar el rol que desempeñaron estos agentes automatizados en el debate en redes sociales sobre la gestión del Gobierno de España durante la pandemia global de COVID-19. Para ello, se han aplicado técnicas de «Social Big Data Analysis»: algoritmos de «machine learning» para conocer el posicionamiento de los usuarios; algoritmos de detección de «bots»; técnicas de «topic modeling» para conocer los temas del debate en la red, y análisis de sentimiento. Se ha utilizado una base de datos compuesta por mensajes de Twitter publicados durante el confinamiento iniciado a raíz del estado de alarma español. La principal conclusión es que los «bots» podrían haber servido para diseñar una campaña de propaganda política iniciada por actores tradicionales con el objetivo de aumentar la crispación en un ambiente de emergencia social. Se sostiene que, aunque dichos agentes no son los únicos actores que aumentan la polarización, sí coadyuvan a extremar el debate sobre determinados temas clave, incrementando la negatividad.

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