Suchergebnisse

Whether people live in echo-chambers when they consume political information online has been the subject of much academic and public debate. This article contributes to this debate combining survey and web-tracking online data from Spain, a country known for its high political parallelism. We find that users spend more time in outlets of their political leanings but, generally, they engage in considerable cross-partisan media exposure, especially those in the left. In addition, we use a quasi experiment to test how major news events affect regular patterns of news consumption, and particularly, selective exposure. We find that the nature of news explains changes in users' overall consumption behaviour, but this has less to do with the type of event than with the interest it arouses. More importantly, we find that users become more polarized along party lines as the level of news consumption and interest for news increases.

Whether people live in echo-chambers when they consume political information online has been the subject of much academic and public debate. This article contributes to this debate combining survey and web-tracking online data from Spain, a country known for its high political parallelism. We find that users spend more time in outlets of their political leanings but, generally, they engage in considerable cross-partisan media exposure, especially those in the left. In addition, we use a quasi experiment to test how major news events affect regular patterns of news consumption, and particularly, selective exposure. We find that the nature of news explains changes in users' overall consumption behaviour, but this has less to do with the type of event than with the interest it arouses. More importantly, we find that users become more polarized along party lines as the level of news consumption and interest for news increases.

Experts in civic education and social media used the "Delphi Method" to address countering social media's "echo chamber" effect. Analyses revealed relative agreement, with required civics courses emerging as the most recommended solution. The need for well-prepared teachers, a coordinated curriculum, and appropriate materials and methods were major considerations.

AbstractThis research relies on a two‐stage content analysis of Reddit to test the assumption that by emphasizing othering and polarizing opinions, homogeneous ideological spaces trigger impolite and uncivil comments towards others, as opposed to spaces that enable cross partisan‐ideological exposure, which overall are seen as positive for democracy. It examines subreddits with varying probability of occurrence of echo chamber effects to measure the prevalence and the targets of incivility and studies the interactions in which these comments emerge in discussions about immigration. Findings show that incivility is higher in subreddits that bring together users with the same ideological and political profile, in which echo chamber effects are more likely to occur, but the redditors' reactions are similar in both types of environments. The targets of incivility vary according to the political orientation of the comments and the political context of the country.

We predict that people with different political orientations will exhibit systematically different levels of political homophily, the tendency to associate with others similar to oneself in political ideology. Research on personality differences across the political spectrum finds that both more conservative and more politically extreme individuals tend to exhibit greater orientations towards cognitive stability, clarity, and familiarity. We reason that such a "preference for certainty" may make these individuals more inclined to seek out the company of those who reaffirm, rather than challenge, their views. Since survey studies of political homophily face well‐documented methodological challenges, we instead test this proposition on a large sample of politically engaged users of the social‐networking platform Twitter, whose ideologies we infer from the politicians and policy nonprofits they follow. As predicted, we find that both more extreme and more conservative individuals tend to be more homophilous than more liberal and more moderate ones.

Echo chambers, i.e., situations where one is exposed only to opinions that agree with their own, are an increasing concern for the political discourse in many democratic countries. This paper studies the phenomenon of political echo chambers on social media. We identify the two components in the phenomenon: the opinion that is shared, and the »chamber» (i.e., the social network) that allows the opinion to »echo» (i.e., be re-shared in the network) -- and examine closely at how these two components interact. We define a production and consumption measure for social-media users, which captures the political leaning of the content shared and received by them. By comparing the two, we find that Twitter users are, to a large degree, exposed to political opinions that agree with their own. We also find that users who try to bridge the echo chambers, by sharing content with diverse leaning, have to pay a »price of bipartisanship» in terms of their network centrality and content appreciation. In addition, we study the role of »gatekeepers,» users who consume content with diverse leaning but produce partisan content (with a single-sided leaning), in the formation of echo chambers. Finally, we apply these findings to the task of predicting partisans and gatekeepers from social and content features. While partisan users turn out relatively easy to identify, gatekeepers prove to be more challenging. ; Peer reviewed

The rise of smart societies, characterized by extensive use of technology and data-driven algorithms, promises to improve our lives. However, this very technology presents a potential threat to the richness and diversity of online culture. This thesis explores the phenomenon of echo chambers and algorithmic bias, examining how they contribute to the homogenization of online experiences. Social media algorithms personalize content feeds, presenting users with information that reinforces their existing beliefs. This creates echo chambers, where users are isolated from diverse viewpoints. Algorithmic bias, stemming from the data used to train these algorithms, can further exacerbate this issue. The main data in this study were sourced from previous studies (secondary data) which focused on research related homogenizing on online culture. The thesis investigates the impact of echo chambers and algorithmic bias on online culture within smart societies. It explores how these factors limit exposure to a variety of ideas and perspectives, potentially leading to a homogenized online experience. By examining the interplay between echo chambers, algorithmic bias, and the homogenization of online culture in smart societies, this thesis aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the impact of technology on our online experiences.

Despite the intensive study of the viral spread of fake news in political echo chambers (ECs) on social networking services (SNSs), little is known regarding the underlying structure of the daily information spread in these ECs. Moreover, the effect of SNSs on opinion polarisation is still unclear in terms of pluralistic information access or selective exposure to opinions in an SNS. In this study, we confirmed the steady, highly independent nature of left- and right-leaning ECs, both of which are composed of approximately 250,000 users, from a year-long reply/retweet network of 42 million Japanese Twitter users. We found that both communities have similarly efficient information spreading networks with densely connected and core-periphery structures. Core nodes resonate in the early stages of information cascades, and unilaterally transmit information to peripheral nodes. Each EC has resonant core users who amplify and steadily spread information to a quarter of a million users. In addition, we confirmed the existence of extremely aggressive users of ECs who co-reply/retweet each other. The connection between these users and top influencers suggests that the extreme opinions of the former group affect the entire community through the top influencers.