Polarization is complex – users often check information twice
Because most people use multiple media and social media platforms, only a small portion of the population is influenced by so-called echo chambers .
These will too Filter bubbles called and describe a situation in which certain information is repeatedly reinforced through communication and repetition. Researcher of the Oxford University and the University of Ottawa Therefore, they hardly see any connections between political polarization and social media.
Easy to avoid
“Whatever the causes of political polarization today, it’s not social media or the internet. If anything, most people use the Internet to expand their media horizons. “We found evidence that people are actively trying to confirm the information they have received online in a variety of ways,”
explains study co-author Grant Blank.
Using a sample of adult internet users in the UK, the researchers looked at people's media choices based on six key variables - and how much they influenced their interaction with echo chambers.
The variables consisted of gender, income, ethnicity, age, breadth of media use and political interest.
The results show that the breadth of multimedia content available makes it easier for people overall to avoid echo chambers. On average, respondents used four different media sources and had accounts on three different social media platforms. The more media people used, the more likely they were to avoid echo chambers.
Uninterested people at risk
Those with a strong political interest were most likely to be opinion leaders in research, to whom others turned for political information. Compared to those less politically interested, these people have been identified as “media junkies” who consume political content wherever they can find it. Because of this diversity, they were also, on average, less likely to find themselves in an echo chamber.
“Our results show that most people are not in a political echo chamber. People at risk are basically those who only rely on a single medium for political news or are not politically interested - that's around eight percent of the population. However, due to their lack of political involvement, their opinions are less influential and their influence on others is likely to be comparatively small."
concludes study co-author Elizabeth Dubois.
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )