2016/07/22 by Jesse Shore, Shore, Jesse, Jiye Baek +3 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Media Influence and Politics #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social Media and Politics #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) #cs.SI #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1607.06795
openalex publication_date 2016/07/22 · arxiv created 2017/12/11 · arxiv updated 2017/12/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Social media have great potential to support diverse information sharing, but there is widespread concern that platforms like Twitter do not result in communication between those who hold contradictory viewpoints. Because users can choose whom to follow, prior research suggests that social media users exist in 'echo chambers' or become polarized. We seek evidence of this in a complete cross section of hyperlinks posted on Twitter, using previously validated measures of the political slant of news sources to study information diversity. Contrary to prediction, we find that the average account posts links to more politically moderate news sources than the ones they receive in their own feed. However, members of a tiny network core do exhibit cross-sectional evidence of polarization and are responsible for the majority of tweets received overall due to their popularity and activity, which could explain the widespread perception of polarization on social media.