Measuring narrative polarization in online discourse

Abstract

Polarization research has demonstrated how people cluster in homogeneous groups with opposing opinions. However, this effect emerges not only through interaction between people, limiting communication between groups, but also between narratives, shaping opinions and partisan identities. Yet, how polarized information environments portray opposing interpretations of reality, and whether narratives move between content environments despite limited interactions, remains unexplored. To address this gap, we formalize the concept of narrative polarization and demonstrate its measurement in 212 YouTube videos and 90,029 comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Based on structural narrative theory and implemented through a large language model, we extract the narrative roles assigned to central actors in two partisan information environments. We find that while videos produce highly polarized narratives, comments exhibit significantly lower levels of narrative polarization, converging on shared core narrative structures. However, recurring narrative motifs capturing more complex actor constellations reveal additional differences between partisan environments.