Linguistic Simplification and Political Engagement: Does Shorter Content Deepen Division?

Di Marco et al. (2024) find that social media comments are becoming shorter and lexically simpler across platforms and topics. Building on this, a novel study could ask: does this simplification make political messages more accessible and participatory, or does it encourage reductionist, emotionally charged, and polarizing discourse? By combining NLP analysis of political hashtags with network and sentiment analyses (see Heryono et al., 2024), the research would test correlations between comment complexity, engagement rates, and polarization metrics. This would reconfigure our understanding of the "democratizing" effect of simplified language—are we seeing broader participation or a shallower, more divisive public sphere? Findings could inform platform design and political messaging strategies aimed at fostering healthy debate.

References:

1. Patterns of linguistic simplification on social media platforms over time. N. Di Marco, Edoardo Loru, Anita Bonetti, Alessandra Olga Grazia Serra, Matteo Cinelli, Walter Quattrociocchi (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
2. Text as a Social Network Analysis Topography And Political Communication In Indonesia. Heri Heryono, Dani Hamdani, Ari Purno Wahyu (2024). Brilliance Research of Artificial Intelligence.