[论文解读] Politicized Attention Shifts Amplify Polarization in the Information Ecosystem during California Wildfires

Chen, Yiheng, Hagen, Alina+5 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Mar 20, 2026

Public Relations and Crisis Communication被引用 0

一句话总结

该论文分析了1.3百万条与野火相关的帖子（2016–2025），表明以行动者为单位的政府评估、以参与度驱动的扩散以及模块化网络共同放大加州野火话语中的负面情绪和极化，尤其在危机期间。

ABSTRACT

Wildfires require governments to communicate under conditions of urgency, uncertainty, and intense public scrutiny, yet such communication now unfolds within a digitally mediated environment shaped by polarization and engagement-based amplification. We analyze over 1.3 million wildfire-related social media posts from California (2016-2025) to examine how institutional actors are evaluated within this landscape. Users' stance toward government is actor-specific: individual political officials are discussed more negatively than operational agencies across federal, state, and local levels, and this gap widens during extreme wildfire events. Moreover, interaction networks become increasingly modular over time, consolidating into polarized communities in which negativity concentrates within cohesive clusters. Engagement-weighted measures show that highly interactive negative content disproportionately shapes visible discourse, while crisis periods redirect attention from emergency agencies to high-profile political figures, reinforcing reputational divergence. These findings indicate that wildfire communication operates within a polarized, engagement-ranked ecosystem in which evaluative tone, network structure, and visibility dynamics jointly shape institutional perception. Effective disaster communication should therefore account for the structural conditions of contemporary digital public communities.

研究动机与目标

• 在野火期间，考察不同行政层级和代表类型的行动者特定政府评估。
• 评估扩散与平台放大对政府相关话语可见性的影响。
• 描述野火话语的互动网络如何随时间变得更加极化和模块化。

提出的方法

• 使用一个LLM流程从135万条帖子中构建政府、非营利组织和新闻机构等实体目标的立场注释。
• 对实体和聚合单位计算极性比率，并拟合混合效应模型以检验按层级和表征的异质性。
• 开发基于可见性的度量（用户、参与度和曝光量加权的负性/正性），以区分表达与覆盖范围。
• 建立年度用户互动网络，计算模块化与E–I指数以评估极化与桥接。
• 分析危机时的扩散，通过中断时间序列分析识别事件相关冲击。
• 识别前1%最放大的来源，以研究精英枢纽及其对负可见性的影响。）

Figure 1: Spatial and institutional heterogeneity in institutional stance across California (2016-2025). a, County–year polarity rate for counties with at least 30 labeled entity instances; counties below the threshold are hatched. CAL FIRE FRAP wildfire perimeters ( $\geq$ 1,000 acres) are overlaid

实验结果

研究问题

• RQ1 RQ1：政府评估在不同行政层级与表征类型（个人 vs. 組织）以及在县级和严重火情期间如何变化？
• RQ2 RQ2：转发驱动的扩散和平台放大是否倾向于高参与的少数派，并且这种转变是否与特定事件相关？
• RQ3 RQ3：互动网络结构如何演变，危机是否通过精英枢纽重新定向注意力以影响负可见性？

主要发现

• 个人政治官员相较于政府机构实体被更负面地讨论，且在严重野火事件期间这种差距扩大。
• 以参与度加权的负性高于以用户加权的负性，且波动性更大，表明在政治化框架中的发声少数派放大效应。
• 自2023年起，互动网络变得更具模块化，跨社区的桥接下降，负面情绪集中在更具凝聚力的簇内。
• 危机时期 discourse 增多并将注意力转向精英角色，对负可见性的主导 actor 群体产生影响。
• 在危机期间，转发放大倾向于政治家和记者，改变了构成负可见性来源的组合。
• 极性因 actor 类型（政府、非营利、新闻）及政府内部的层级与代表而异，通常组织性 actor 比个人 actor 更积极。

Figure 2: Visibility-weighted stance reveals vocal-minority amplification and event-linked shocks in government wildfire discourse. a, Weekly negativity rate among posts mentioning government entities under three measurement channels: user-weighted baseline, engagement-weighted salience (likes $+$ r