The Impact of Social Media on Political Echo Chambers
Abstract
<p>People's opinions and beliefs are informed by the information they receive. In the current age of social media, the sources of information are not limited to traditional news outlets; friends and followers will often share content related to current affairs on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. A single click allows users to be exposed to media and articles that accommodate their preexisting beliefs. As a result, social media platforms can lead to the reinforcement of existing opinions and beliefs, possibly facilitating the creation of echo chambers of polarized political views. Coupled with traditional media’s biases and the profit-oriented structure of online news, it calls for an investigation into whether social media use induces echo chamber effects. In so doing, the impact can be more precisely measured and understood. As the ways in which social media shape political communication are the focal point of contemporary discourse, the presented findings should shed light on understanding the nuanced relationship between social media use and echo chambers in the realm of political media consumption.</p> <p>The methodologies used in the research consist of a web survey in which 394 social media users responded regarding their media use and political attitudes, as well as two survey-embedded experiments carried out using one-step (n = 286) and two-step (n = 572) survey-embedded experiments. The findings suggest that the use of social media platforms, particularly Facebook, can indeed create echo chamber effects in terms of political media use. Moreover, preference for online news plays a crucial role in this process. This study provides empirical evidence of how the use of social media can result in the convergence of political beliefs of its users only in a certain direction and should inspire new discussions about the negative side of social media.</p>.
Keywords- social media, political echo chambers, information reinforcement, media consumption, polarized views, online news, political communication, user beliefs.
