Echo chamber amplification and disagreement effects in the political activity of Twitter users
نویسندگان
چکیده
Online social networks have emerged as a significant platform for political discourse. In this paper we investigate what affects the level of participation of users in the political discussion. Specifically, are users more likely to be active when they are surrounded by like-minded individuals, or, alternatively, when their environment is heterogeneous, and so their messages might be carried to people with differing views. To answer this question, we analyzed the activity of approximately 400, 000 twitter users who expressed explicit support for one of the presidential candidates of the 2012 US presidential election. We quantified the level of political activity (PA) of users by the fraction of political tweets in their posts, and analyzed the relationship between PA and measures of the users political environment. These measures were designed to assess the likemindedness, e.g., the fraction of users with similar political views, of their virtual and geographic environments. Our results showed that the dependence of PA on likemindedness of the virtual environment is independent of political affiliation. This dependence has a dominant maximum that occurs when political opinions of users virtual peers are evenly split. This peak is inline with the disagreement theory that states that user’s political activity is invigorated by the disagreement with their
منابع مشابه
Of echo chambers and contrarian clubs: Exposure to political disagreement among German and Italian users of Twitter
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