Sentimental polarization on Twitter during the 2021 National Strike in Colombia

Abstract

In 2021, Colombia experienced one of the most significant periods of social protests –initially motivated as a response to the reforms proposed by this country’s government in tax, health, or pension matters– in its recent republican history. A highly conflictive scenario, in which social networks played a leading role reporting what happened each day of protests and as a scenario to vindicate social demands. In this context, this work aims to understand how the sentimentalpolarization observedon Twitter favoredthe digitalmobilization strategy. To this end, we collected 1,215,646 messages published in Spanish on Twitter from 05/01/2021 to 07/03/2022, and linked to the leading hashtags used during the period studied (#paronacionalcolombia, #nosestanmatandocolombia, #SOSColombia, #Colombiaalertaroja, and #ColombiaSOSDDHH). The results show us an apparent coordination between users located in different countries, who digitallymobilizethedebatearoundthese proteststhroughtheviralizationofthematicaxes focused mainly on making visible the protests’ development, the violence of the Colombian security forces, andtheviolation ofhumanrights. These issues addressedin micro-narratives publishedonTwitter contain a different sentimental charge, depending on the country of origin of these messages. This can favour the polarization and conflict of public opinion around what happened in that country..