scholarly journals Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 831-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ro’ee Levy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Online News ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Large Field ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Online News Sites ◽  
Political Opinions

Does the consumption of ideologically congruent news on social media exacerbate polarization? I estimate the effects of social media news exposure by conducting a large field experiment randomly offering participants subscriptions to conservative or liberal news outlets on Facebook. I collect data on the causal chain of media effects: subscriptions to outlets, exposure to news on Facebook, visits to online news sites, and sharing of posts, as well as changes in political opinions and attitudes. Four main findings emerge. First, random variation in exposure to news on social media substantially affects the slant of news sites that individuals visit. Second, exposure to counter-attitudinal news decreases negative attitudes toward the opposing political party. Third, in contrast to the effect on attitudes, I find no evidence that the political leanings of news outlets affect political opinions. Fourth, Facebook’s algorithm is less likely to supply individuals with posts from counter-attitudinal outlets, conditional on individuals subscribing to them. Together, the results suggest that social media algorithms may limit exposure to counter-attitudinal news and thus increase polarization. (JEL C93, D72, L82)

scholarly journals Negative e-WOM Resulting from Political Posts on Social Media: A Case Study of a Small Retailer’s Struggle over Time

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 318
Author(s):  
Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen ◽  
Katelyn Sorensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Retail Store ◽  
The Political ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Political Opinion ◽  
Political Opinions ◽  
Over Time

Consumers have been advocating for a variety of causes, and in turn, retailers are expressing their political opinions through social-media posts in hopes of aligning with their customers’ views. This study looks at a single case in which customers reacted to a retailer’s political opinion posted on a social media account. Data was collected at the time of the retailer’s political post and up to three years afterward. Content analysis was employed to identify themes from the customer reviews posted, and four themes were identified. Of significance, this study found that customers of a retail store typically merge feelings on the retailer’s product and political post or the retailer’s service and the political post within their social media responses. Thus, a majority of customers in this case were not exclusively focused on battling the political post on social media. Also, a shift in customers’ opinions of the retailer shifted positively over time.

Engaging Young Voters in the Political Process

2022 ◽  
pp. 1476-1493
Author(s):  
Stephane Bignoux
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Media Marketing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
Western Democracies

The aim of this chapter is to analyse young voter engagement in modern Western democracies. Why young voters? Young voters are disengaged from the political process. In order to complete the analysis, the author adapts an engagement model from social media marketing. The adapted model consists of three parts: consumption, contribution, and (co) creation of brand related materials. The author hypothesises that each aspect of the model is related to the other and that all three aspects of the model are positively related to loyalty to the political party brand. The aim of this conceptual adaptation is to investigate a new way to re-engage young voters with the political party brand, thereby strengthening one pillar of modern democracy.

Bots or journalists? News sharing on Twitter

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Olof Larsson ◽  
Moe Hallvard
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Online News ◽  
Highly Active ◽  
Media Services ◽  
Web Social ◽  
Online News Sites ◽  
News Sharing ◽  
Directing Attention ◽  
The Web

AbstractOnline news sites have become an internet ‘staple’, but we know little of the forces driving the popularity of such sites in relation to what could be understood as the latest iteration of the web – social media services. This research in brief article discusses empirical results regarding the uses of Twitter for news sharing. Specifically, we present a comparative analysis of links emanating from the service at hand to a series of media outlets over a six-month period in two countries; Sweden and Norway. Focusing on linking practices among highly active Twitter accounts, we problematize the assumption that online communication involves two or more humans by directing attention to more or less automated ‘bot’ accounts. In sum, it is suggested that such automated accounts need to be dealt with more explicitly by researchers as well as practitioners interested in the popularity of online news as expressed through social media activity.

scholarly journals The processing and evaluation of news content on social media is influenced by peer-user commentary

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnout B. Boot ◽  
Katinka Dijkstra ◽  
Rolf A. Zwaan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
General Public ◽  
Online News ◽  
Negativity Bias ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
News Content ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Negative Comments ◽  
Persuasive Effect

AbstractContemporary news often spreads via social media. This study investigated whether the processing and evaluation of online news content can be influenced by Likes and peer-user comments. An online experiment was designed, using a custom-built website that resembled Facebook, to explore how Likes, positive comments, negative comments, or a combination of positive and negative comments would affect the reader’s processing of news content. The results showed that especially negative comments affected the readers’ personal opinions about the news content, even in combination with other positive comments: They (1) induced more negative attitudes, (2) lowered intent to share it, (3) reduced agreement with conveyed ideas, (4) lowered perceived attitude of the general public, and (5) decreased the credibility of the content. Against expectations, the presence of Likes did not affect the readers, irrespective of the news content. An important consideration is that, while the negative comments were persuasive, they comprised subjective, emotive, and fallacious rhetoric. Finally, negativity bias, the perception of expert authority, and cognitive heuristics are discussed as potential explanations for the persuasive effect of negative comments.

Interacting with Whom?

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Svensson ◽  
Anders Olof Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Political Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Political Network ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Voter Groups ◽  
Media Practices

This article explores Swedish Parliamentarians' Twitter practices during the 2014 general elections. For individual candidates, the political party is important for positions within the party and on the ballot, especially in a party-centered democracy. A previous qualitative (n)ethnographic research project during the previous elections in 2010, in which one campaigning politician was studied in-depth, found that her social media practices to a large extent were inward-facing, focusing on the own party network. But does this result resonate among all Swedish Parliamentarians? Specifically, the authors ask: is Twitter primarily used interactively, for intra-party communication, to interact with strategic voter groups or voters in general? By analyzing all Parliamentarians tweets two weeks up to the elections the authors conclude that retweeting was done within a party political network while @messaging was directed towards political opponents. Mass media journalists and editorial writers were important in Parliamentarians' Twitter practices, while so-called ordinary voters were more absent.

scholarly journals How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media? Evidence From Linked Survey and Twitter Data

SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401983270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Eady ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Andy Guess ◽  
Jan Zilinsky ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Political Spectrum

A major point of debate in the study of the Internet and politics is the extent to which social media platforms encourage citizens to inhabit online “bubbles” or “echo chambers,” exposed primarily to ideologically congenial political information. To investigate this question, we link a representative survey of Americans with data from respondents’ public Twitter accounts ( N = 1,496). We then quantify the ideological distributions of users’ online political and media environments by merging validated estimates of user ideology with the full set of accounts followed by our survey respondents ( N = 642,345) and the available tweets posted by those accounts ( N ~ 1.2 billion). We study the extent to which liberals and conservatives encounter counter-attitudinal messages in two distinct ways: (a) by the accounts they follow and (b) by the tweets they receive from those accounts, either directly or indirectly (via retweets). More than a third of respondents do not follow any media sources, but among those who do, we find a substantial amount of overlap (51%) in the ideological distributions of accounts followed by users on opposite ends of the political spectrum. At the same time, however, we find asymmetries in individuals’ willingness to venture into cross-cutting spaces, with conservatives more likely to follow media and political accounts classified as left-leaning than the reverse. Finally, we argue that such choices are likely tempered by online news watching behavior.

Interacting with Whom?

2020 ◽  
pp. 460-476
Author(s):  
Jakob Svensson ◽  
Anders Olof Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Political Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Political Network ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Voter Groups ◽  
Media Practices

This article explores Swedish Parliamentarians' Twitter practices during the 2014 general elections. For individual candidates, the political party is important for positions within the party and on the ballot, especially in a party-centered democracy. A previous qualitative (n)ethnographic research project during the previous elections in 2010, in which one campaigning politician was studied in-depth, found that her social media practices to a large extent were inward-facing, focusing on the own party network. But does this result resonate among all Swedish Parliamentarians? Specifically, the authors ask: is Twitter primarily used interactively, for intra-party communication, to interact with strategic voter groups or voters in general? By analyzing all Parliamentarians tweets two weeks up to the elections the authors conclude that retweeting was done within a party political network while @messaging was directed towards political opponents. Mass media journalists and editorial writers were important in Parliamentarians' Twitter practices, while so-called ordinary voters were more absent.

scholarly journals The Electability Level of PDI-P on Social Media of Instagram

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Resky Eka Rachmandani ◽  
Eko Priyo Purnomo ◽  
Aulia Nur Kasiwi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
Analyze Data

In this era of the 21st century, political parties have many ways to develop a campaign, including on social media as a new medium to do a campaign. Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P) has its own strategy toward social media to achieve their power in society. This research aims to discover the level of electability of PDI-P through Instagram, one of social media platforms being used to make social interaction with the public. Starting from Instagram, this research has decided three criteria: basic of election mode, media channels, and technological access to political party that can be seen by public. The analysis is conducted to a variety of large and small media outlets that analyze and explore things beyond political parties. This research uses Nvivo12 Plus as network analysis tools to identify and analyze data from Instagram related to PDI-P strategy. The results of this study show that social media has a significant role in pursuing and maintaining the power of political parties to stay strong in society’s life. This research also develops a novelty, based on the results, that social media has a strong power to build a strategy and accept plurality in society’s behavior, instead of building a strong branding of the political party itself and stand out as candidates.  

Engaging Young Voters in the Political Process

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephane Bignoux
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Media Marketing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
Western Democracies

The aim of this chapter is to analyse young voter engagement in modern Western democracies. Why young voters? Young voters are disengaged from the political process. In order to complete the analysis, the author adapts an engagement model from social media marketing. The adapted model consists of three parts: consumption, contribution, and (co) creation of brand related materials. The author hypothesises that each aspect of the model is related to the other and that all three aspects of the model are positively related to loyalty to the political party brand. The aim of this conceptual adaptation is to investigate a new way to re-engage young voters with the political party brand, thereby strengthening one pillar of modern democracy.

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