@techreport{publications47940,
          volume = {23-154},
           month = {June},
          author = {Guillaume Deffuant and Marijn Keijzer and Sven Banisch},
          series = {IAST Working Paper},
       booktitle = {IAST Working Paper},
           title = {Regular access to constantly renewed online content favors radicalization of opinions},
            type = {Working Paper},
       publisher = {IAST Working Paper},
            year = {2023},
        keywords = {Opinion dynamics, Online media, Con?rmation bias, Web 1.0, Biased processing},
             url = {https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/47940/},
        abstract = {Worry over polarization has grown alongside the digital information consump-tion revolution. Where most scienti?c work considered user-generated and user-disseminated (i.e., Web 2.0) content as the culprit, the potential of purely increased access to informa-tion (or Web 1.0) has been largely overlooked. Here, we suggest that the shift to Web 1.0 alone could include a powerful mechanism of belief extremization. We study an empiri-cally calibrated persuasive argument model with con?rmation bias. We compare an o?ine setting{--}in which a limited number of arguments is broadcast by traditional media{--}with an online setting{--}in which the agent can choose to watch contents within a very wide set of possibilities. In both cases, we assume that positive and negative arguments are balanced. The simulations show that the online setting leads to signi?cantly more extreme opinions and ampli?es initial prejudice.}
}