Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in Western democracies

Boulianne, Shelley; Koc-Michalska, Karolina; Bimber, Bruce

doi:10.1177/1461444819893983

Cited by 75 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Most users will thus show hybrid patterns of political news use-some leaning more towards mass media, others leaning more towards SM. When investigating echo chambers, we should thus not focus on SM, but must control for the use of other information sources (Boulianne, Koc-Michalska, and Bimber 2020). This becomes even more critical because political information use on SM is positively correlated with political information use from other sources, e.g., as a common consequence of one's level of political interest (Str€ omb€ ack and Shehata 2010).…”

Section: Premise 1: Sm Are the Only Information Source That Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The tone of media coverage about migration was positive and criticized the AfD and migration-skeptics (Haller 2017), but it would nevertheless put forth the "big message" that the migration-skeptical camp is large, growing, dominates and changes political discourse. Migration-skeptics challenged the media's reporting, particularly on SM as a preferred channel for right-wing populists (Boulianne, Koc-Michalska, and Bimber 2020) in their attempt to bypass the (purportedly hostile, left-wing) news media (Choi, Yang, and Chang 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, recent evidence has cast doubts on the validity or universal applicability of the echo chamber metaphor. Reality seems to be more nuanced, binding echo chamber effects to preconditions such as high initial attitude extremity or a near-exclusive reliance on one's SM ecosystem to get political information (Barbera 2020;Boulianne, Koc-Michalska, and Bimber 2020).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Loopholes in the Echo Chambers: How the Echo Chamber Metaphor Oversimplifies the Effects of Information Gateways on Opinion Expression

Geiß¹,

Magin²,

Jürgens

et al. 2021

Digital Journalism

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Social media (SM) are often regarded drivers of personalized echo chambers in which only ideas resonante that individuals already hold, leading to more extreme opinions and intensified opinion expression. However, recent theorizing and evidence has cast doubts on the universal applicability of the echo chamber metaphor, pointing out that communication effects on opinion expression are much more complex than the metaphor suggests. Using the refugee crisis in Germany as a background, the current study challenges four implicit premises of the echo chamber metaphor empirically. The findings show a more complex picture than the metaphor implies: (1) Ignoring other information sources beyond SM may lead to severe misinterpretations; seeming evidence for echo chambers disappears after controlling for news media use.(2) SM reliance does not generally stimulate opinion expression.(3) Attitude extremity moderates the effect of SM reliance, suggesting that people with more extreme views are susceptible to echo chamber effects. (4) Attitude position on the issue-at-hand moderates the effect of SM reliance, which suggests that echo chambers do not completely shield their users from the public discourse. We propose the Echo Chamber Continuum (ECCo) Model to stimulate developing the echo chamber metaphor into a theory suitable for studying opinion formation.

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Section: Premise 1: Sm Are the Only Information Source That Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Loopholes in the Echo Chambers: How the Echo Chamber Metaphor Oversimplifies the Effects of Information Gateways on Opinion Expression

Geiß¹,

Magin²,

Jürgens

et al. 2021

Digital Journalism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Wells et al (2020) seek to understand the relationship between populists and traditional media. Finally, Boulianne et al (2020) investigate the propensity of voters to turn toward populist candidates due to their usage of offline and online media, social media, and the possible echo chamber effects. The Special Issue concludes as it started, with a theoretical essay by Bimber and Gil de Zúñiga (2020) that centers on the challenges brought upon by the development of social media and some populist communication strategies to the existence of the public sphere within democratic regimes.…”

Section: Volume Research Highlightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism in the era of Twitter: How social media contextualized new insights into an old phenomenon

Zúñiga

Koc-Michalska

Römmele

2020

New Media & Society

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With the advent of social media, political communication scholars have systematically revised theories and empirical corollaries revolving media use and democracy at large. Interestingly, in about the same period of time, a reinvigorated political populism trend has taken place across different latitudes in the world. This widespread populist movement has expanded regardless of whether these political systems were established democracies, emerging democracies, or societies immersed in political contexts at peril. This essay serves as the introductory piece to a special issue on populism. First, it highlights the ways in which “populism,” being an old phenomenon, has further transpired into the political realm in the era of social media. Second, the essay seeks to better contextualize what populism is and how it has developed within today’s hybrid media society. Finally, this introduction also lays out the ground to six central theoretical and data-driven papers that encapsulate many of the important issues revolving the phenomenon of populism today.

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“…Users may be served specific content tailored to their scientific beliefs or right-winged versus left-winged online persona, bringing in potential for confirmation bias. 22 23 …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Modern Health Journalism and the Impact of Social Media

2021

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Scholarly journals are hubs of hypotheses, evidence-based data, and practice recommendations that shape health research and practice worldwide. The advancement of science and information technologies has made online accessibility a basic requirement, paving the way for the advent of open access publishing, and more recently, to web-based health journalism. Especially in the time of the current pandemic, health professionals have turned to the internet, and primarily to social media, as a source of rapid information transfer and international communication. Hence, the current pandemic has ushered an era of digital transformation of science, and we attempt to understand and assess the impact of this digitization on modern health journalism.

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Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in Western democracies

Cited by 75 publications

References 34 publications

Loopholes in the Echo Chambers: How the Echo Chamber Metaphor Oversimplifies the Effects of Information Gateways on Opinion Expression

Loopholes in the Echo Chambers: How the Echo Chamber Metaphor Oversimplifies the Effects of Information Gateways on Opinion Expression

Populism in the era of Twitter: How social media contextualized new insights into an old phenomenon

Modern Health Journalism and the Impact of Social Media

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