Social Cues and Interest in Reading Political News Stories

People tend to prefer information sources that agree with their viewpoints, as predicted by the selective exposure theory, and to associate with people who are like them, a process known as homophily. Scholars raise fears that the combination of these factors can limit the diversity of viewpoints to which people are exposed, particularly when people find news through social network sites. In this study, we evaluate whether we can use annotations showing that a story was shared by people who are in some way similar to encourage people to read articles that may challenge their viewpoints. Most annotations (shared city, employer, music tastes, liked organizations, and friendship) had no discernable effect on reading interest compared to no annotation. Shared job type, though, led to decreased interest in reading an article. Although people consider themselves similar to others sharing news articles, this predominantly does not change their reading interest.