Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Christopher A BailAlexander Volfovsky

Abstract

There is mounting concern that social media sites contribute to political polarization by creating "echo chambers" that insulate people from opposing views about current events. We surveyed a large sample of Democrats and Republicans who visit Twitter at least three times each week about a range of social policy issues. One week later, we randomly assigned respondents to a treatment condition in which they were offered financial incentives to follow a Twitter bot for 1 month that exposed them to messages from those with opposing political ideologies (e.g., elected officials, opinion leaders, media organizations, and nonprofit groups). Respondents were resurveyed at the end of the month to measure the effect of this treatment, and at regular intervals throughout the study period to monitor treatment compliance. We find that Republicans who followed a liberal Twitter bot became substantially more conservative posttreatment. Democrats exhibited slight increases in liberal attitudes after following a conservative Twitter bot, although these effects are not statistically significant. Notwithstanding important limitations of our study, these findings have significant implications for the interdisciplinary literature on political pola...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 18, 2019·PloS One·Weihua LiPeter J Mucha
Jul 18, 2019·Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·Xiaoyan LuBoleslaw K Szymanski
Nov 27, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Christopher A BailAlexander Volfovsky
Apr 16, 2020·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Jay J Van BavelClaire Robertson
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Aug 6, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Yu Luo, Jiaying Zhao
Aug 6, 2020·Chaos·Leila HedayatifarYaneer Bar-Yam
May 16, 2019·Scientific Reports·Nicola Perra, Luis E C Rocha
Jun 13, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Samantha L Moore-BergEmile Bruneau
Dec 19, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·David Lazer
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