The role of charismatic influencers in polarisation: an agent-based modelling approach

Societies tend to polarise when there is disagreement on important societal issues (e.g., global warming, gun control in the US, Brexit in the UK). The rise of social media in recent years has led to the phenomenon of influencers, who are now prominent in debates on social issues, especially online. However, their effect on polarisation is not well understood. To address this gap, we create an Agent-Based Model of a society into which an influencer is introduced. We manipulate the influencer’s levels of charisma and type of communication (moderate versus extreme content) to see their effect on the society over multiple reiterations of the model. We find that an influencer communicating extreme views tends to increase the rate of polarisation, with this effect increasing in line with their degree of charisma. The effect of a moderate influencer varies according to their levels of charisma, but a non-charismatic moderate influencer can be almost as polarising as an extremist influencer. This means that polarisation could be combated through a careful combination of moderate content delivered by a highly charismatic influencer to all groups across the ideological divide. We discuss these findings from the perspective of the social identity theory applied to charismatic leadership and polarisation.