Of echo chambers and contrarian clubs: exposure to political disagreement among German and Italian users of Twitter

Barberá, Pablo, Vaccari, Cristian, Valeriani, Augusto, Jost, John T., Nagler, Jonathan and Tucker, Joshua A. (2016) Of echo chambers and contrarian clubs: exposure to political disagreement among German and Italian users of Twitter. Social Media + Society, 2 (3). pp. 1-24. ISSN 2056-3051

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Abstract

Scholars have debated whether social media platforms, by allowing users to select the information to which they are exposed, may lead people to isolate themselves from viewpoints with which they disagree, thereby serving as political “echo chambers.” We investigate hypotheses concerning the circumstances under which Twitter users who communicate about elections would engage with (a) supportive, (b) oppositional, and (c) mixed political networks. Based on online surveys of representative samples of Italian and German individuals who posted at least one Twitter message about elections in 2013, we find substantial differences in the extent to which social media facilitates exposure to similar versus dissimilar political views. Our results suggest that exposure to supportive, oppositional, or mixed political networks on social media can be explained by broader patterns of political conversation (i.e., structure of offline networks) and specific habits in the political use of social media (i.e., the intensity of political discussion). These findings suggest that disagreement persists on social media even when ideological homophily is the modal outcome, and that scholars should pay more attention to specific situational and dispositional factors when evaluating the implications of social media for political communication.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://journals.sagepub.com/home/sms
Additional Information:	© 2018 SAGE Publications Ltd.
Divisions:	Methodology
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JC Political theory Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Date Deposited:	11 Apr 2018 11:53
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 01:19
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/87400

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