Broadcast media are declining in their power to decide which issues and viewpoints will reach large audiences. But new information filters are appearing, in the guise of recommender systems, aggregators, search engines, feed ranking algorithms, and the sites we bookmark and the people and organizations we choose to follow on Twitter. Sometimes we explicitly choose our filters; some we hardly even notice. Critics worry that, collectively, these filters will isolate people in information bubbles only partly of their own choosing, and that the inaccurate beliefs they form as a result may be difficult to correct. But should we really be worried, and, if so, what can we do about it? Our panelists will review what scholars know about selectivity of exposure preferences and actual exposure and what we in the CSCW field can do to develop and test ways of promoting diverse exposure, openness to the diversity we actually encounter, and deliberative discussion.

1. BURSTING YOUR
(FILTER) BUBBLE
Learning from Selective Exposure
R. Kelly Garrett | Asst. Professor | OSU School of
Communication
CSCW ’13, San Antonio, TX
February 25, 2013

2. SELECTIVE EXPOSURE
 Political attitudes influence what information people
consume (Lazarsfeld, et al., 1948; Frey, 1986)
 Selective approach, selective avoidance (Garrett,
2009)
 Not echo chambers (Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2011; Webster &
Ksiazek , 2012, Garrett et al., 2013)
 Context matters
 Effective design can capitalize on what we’ve
learned garrett.258@osu.edu 2

3. THE PROBLEM WITH EITHER/OR
garrett.258@osu.edu 3

4. CONTENT CUES
 Two experiments with similar design
 One using source cues (Iyengar & Hahn, 2009)
 Other using content cues (Garrett & Stroud,
2012)
 Strikingly different results
 Conservatives preferred Fox and avoided
CNN & NPR; Liberals the reverse
 Neither conservatives nor liberals consistently
avoided counter-attitudinal
 Lesson: Content cues may help overcome
some expressions of bias
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5. PARTY AFFILIATION
 Republicans avoid predominantly
counter-attitudinal content
 Democrats seek high levels of
pro-attitudinal content
 Both groups entertain diverse viewpoints
 Lesson: Different mixes of content may appeal
depending on the consumer’s political identity
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Avoid this… But not this.
And this.Seek this…

6. MOTIVATED REASONING & GOALS
 News consumers’ information seeking varies
depending on their goals (Carnahan, 2013)
 Accuracy
 Directional
 Closure
 For example, individuals who expect to publicly
justify their position to experts are more balanced
consumers
 Lesson: If you can prime accuracy goals, you can
make diverse exposure more palatable
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7. EMOTIONS
 Anxiety (Valentino et al., 2009; Carnahan et al., 2011)
 Individuals seek out diverse viewpoints when that
information helps them alleviate the threat
 Anger?
 We may avoid or abandon sources that make us angry
 Lessons: Users’ emotional states can provide clues
to the types of content that will attract them
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8. BROADER DESIGN IMPLICATIONS
 More sophisticated understanding of preferences
 Don’t present users with an either/or choice
 Recommend sets or streams of information
 Use context
 Provide counter-attitudinal content in form or context
that people find most palatable
 Nudge
 Prime normative expectations, benefits of counter-
attitudinal exposure (or risks of ignorance), etc.
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