The complex link between filter bubbles and opinion polarization

Keijzer, Marijn A.; Mäs, Michael

doi:10.3233/ds-220054

Cited by 20 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 122 publications

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“…In line with findings by Sindermann et al (2021) and H1 (related to the second research aim), a small, although significant, positive relationship between Openness and political news consumption heterogeneity as assessed across all and the online media types was observed in both samples; in Sample 2, also the relationship with offline political news consumption heterogeneity was significantly positive. This does not only support the notion that not all individuals are prone to consuming homogeneous political news to the same degree (Dubois & Blank, 2018; Geiß et al, 2021; Keijzer & Mäs, 2022). It also underlines that individuals who are open to new ideas are also open to consuming news contradicting their own views.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

The Degree of Homogeneity Versus Heterogeneity in Individuals’ Political News Consumption

Sindermann,

Montag,

Elhai

2024

Journal of Media Psychology

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This work investigated the prevalence of filter bubble or echo chamber-related phenomena, psychological factors rendering individuals resilient or vulnerable to them, and their associations to political views focusing on extremity and polarization. For this, a cross-cultural replication of a study by Sindermann et al. (2021) was conducted. As an extension, multiple political views variables were assessed to examine whether the application of different conceptualizations of political views explains heterogeneous findings across previous studies. Two samples were recruited: 390 ( n = 135 males) US college students and a quota sample of 489 ( n = 243 males) US adults. Participants completed personality scales and measures on political news consumption homogeneity versus heterogeneity and political views. Consistent with previous research, results revealed few individuals consume political news absolutely homogeneously. Openness was negatively related to the degree of political news consumption homogeneity, and the relationship between political news consumption homogeneity and political views yielded inconsistent, often statistically nonsignificant, results. These findings challenge the prevailing notion of filter bubbles and echo chambers as widespread phenomena and indicate that relationships between political news consumption homogeneity and political views are not necessarily deleterious with respect to extremization and polarization. As such, the results suggest that these phenomena might not be as significant for the general population as previously thought. Nonetheless, certain individuals might still find themselves in filter bubbles or echo chambers and suffer from accompanying consequences. In this regard, the present work replicates findings underscoring that individuals with lower Openness exhibit greater political news consumption homogeneity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

The Degree of Homogeneity Versus Heterogeneity in Individuals’ Political News Consumption

Sindermann,

Montag,

Elhai

2024

Journal of Media Psychology

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“…Fourth, a typical YouTube user will be logged in and is therefore subject to personalized recommendations. Personalized recommendations might slim down the set of information for any individual user (and, in turn, produce polarization, see Keijzer & Mäs, 2022), but more importantly, they might create a very different user experience than the one assumed in the analyses in this paper. It is unlikely that the two do not relate at all, since the 'general' YouTube recommendation links are also the outcome of user behavior observed on the platform, but we currently cannot account for the effects of personalization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Papadamou et al, 2021), and demographic attributes like age, gender, and geographical location (Hussein, Juneja, & Mitra, 2020). The interplay of those factors, however, is still a black box that might connect input to output in unexpected ways (Keijzer & Mäs, 2022). A second aspect that makes studying the algorithm particularly challenging is the fact that it is not static (Beer, 2009;Rogers, 2013).…”

Section: The Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Particularly during such times of uncertainty, access to accurate information is crucial. Little is known, however, about the way in which social media platforms shape our beliefs (Keijzer & Mäs, 2022). By lack of scientific consensus, the academic discourse on communication technology has developed into a "pendulum ranging from utopian to apocalyptic."…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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CovidTube: Mapping information segregation on YouTube

Keijzer¹,

Golan²,

Coiciu³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for a range of new conspiracy theories and extreme beliefs. Social media in general, and YouTube in particular, play a decisive role in the spreading of fringe content by not suppressing or even boosting the spread of such information. Users are predisposed to consume extreme content, creators prey on the emotions of users and game the algorithm to increase their popularity, and recommendation algorithms create feedback loops of progressively extreme content or ‘radicalization pipelines’. All three forces together may create information ‘bubbles’ that bias individual beliefs. We know, however, very little about the degree of information segregation and the structure of recommendation flows on YouTube, despite the platform’s position as the second most visited website in the world.This study maps the structure of COVID-19 information as a network of videos connected by inter-video recommendations. We collected nearly 10,000 videos and up to 20 recommendation links per video using COVID-related search terms on the YouTube API. To understand the structure of the graph we employed a mixed methods approach, using, a combination of quantitative graph analysis techniques and qualitative descriptions. We manually labeled the content of over a third of all videos and enriched the data further by merging with ideological labels from the Recfluence dataset. We then mapped these labels to pockets of videos that are well-connected to each other, as revealed by a community detection algorithm. Descriptive analyses of topical homogeneity within clusters of videos are supplemented with qualitative characterizations of the communities and the most important ‘bridging’ and ‘switching’ nodes within them. Contrary to popular beliefs about YouTube’s tendency to create informational ‘rabbit holes’ or ‘radicalization pipelines’, we find no evidence for algorithmic bias that would push users towards the consumption of fringe content.

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“…Therefore, it is assumed that the "most persuasive argument" must not be an argument that the user actually agrees with, but can also be one that the users is completely opposed to. This approach builds on previous research that has investigated echo chamber polarization on social media through persuasive argument theory (Sharma & Vasuja, 2022) and that call for a more complex approach toward online polarization (Keijzer & Mäs, 2022).…”

Section: Persuasive Argument Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

When Birds of a Feather Instagram Together: Debating the Image of Islam in Echo Chambers and Through Trench Warfare on Social Media

Aydin

Fuess

Förster

et al. 2022

Social Media + Society

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Social media contributions surrounding the Charlie Hebdo attacks have been key in the creation and evolution of the image of Islam online. While the attacks were seen as an affront to French values and ways of life, online exchanges have traveled around the globe. Especially with social media platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram, offering immediate translations of captions has increased the reach of posts immensely. Specifically, hashtag use has the ability to transcend national boundaries and helps in the creation of echo chambers and or fuels trench warfare online. This article extends on this work by examining how the image of Islam is transmitted and changed on Instagram through the use of the hashtag #CharlieHebdo. Specifically, the following three primary research questions are examined: (1) How does hashtag co-occurrence, in the discussion surrounding Charlie Hebdo, indicate echo chamber behavior? (2) How does trench warfare impact the debate surrounding the image of Islam within the #CharlieHebdo conversation? (3) Which categories can posts be put into based on other hashtags that are used simultaneously? To answer these questions, Instagram posts, posted nearly 6 years after the Charlie Hebdo attack was perpetrated in Paris and during the time of the trials of the suspects took place, are used as a case study. It was found that Islamophobia within the Charlie Hebdo debate online indeed indicates echo chamber behavior. The significance of this study was found to be two-fold. First, it extends the research on detecting echo chamber behavior through social network analysis and sentiment analysis of co-used hashtags. Second, it highlights the fact that trench warfare is a well understood tactic by Instagram users, for the hijacking of hashtags, and the role it plays in the polarization of hashtag communities.

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The complex link between filter bubbles and opinion polarization

Cited by 20 publications

References 122 publications

The Degree of Homogeneity Versus Heterogeneity in Individuals’ Political News Consumption

The Degree of Homogeneity Versus Heterogeneity in Individuals’ Political News Consumption

CovidTube: Mapping information segregation on YouTube

When Birds of a Feather Instagram Together: Debating the Image of Islam in Echo Chambers and Through Trench Warfare on Social Media

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