2. Overview: Exposure to Diverse Information on Facebook
• Does social media lead to “echo chambers?”
• where people only come into contact with information from like-minded individuals
• Do social media algorithms create “filter bubbles?”
• only ideologically appealing content comes to the top
• Two counterexamples to these ideas:
• Rethinking Information Diversity in Network (Eytan 2012)
• Selective Exposure in the Age of Social Media (Messing & Westwood 2014)
3. What percentage of your
Facebook posts are your own
content compared to what you
share?
4. Echo Chamber in Media
In media, an echo chamber is a
situation in which information, ideas,
or beliefs are amplified or reinforced
by transmission and repetition inside
an "enclosed" system...
https://vimeo.com/30865415
5. Do you think that your
newsfeed is filled with posts
that are similar to your views?
6. Findings
• People have friends with opposing political ideology
• Newsfeed content reflects those diverse views
• 23% of people’s friends claim to have an opposing political ideology
• 29.5% of hard news content that friends share cuts across ideological lines
• 28.5% of hard news encountered of what people see in the newsfeed cuts across
ideological lines
• 24.9% of hards news content that people actually clicked on was cross-cutting
Do those percentages actually reflect diverse views?
https://research.facebook.com/blog/1393382804322065/exposure-to-diverse-information-on-facebook/
7. Birds of a Feather…
• Similar people associate with one another
• Friends more likely to be similar in age, educational attainment, occupation, and
geography
• On Facebook: Political affiliation of your friend.
14. “By showing that people are exposed to a substantial amount of
content from friends with opposing viewpoints, our findings
contrast concerns that people might ‘list and speak only to the
like-minded’ while online”
15. Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks
• A lot of the information we
are exposed to on social
media comes from weak ties
(friends we interact with less
often)
• Suggests that social media
may actually increase the
spread of novel information
and diverse viewpoints
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-
science/rethinking-information-diversity-in-
networks/10150503499618859
17. Finding of Diversity in Networks
• Information we consume and share on Facebook is more diverse than people
may think
• We are exposed to and spread more information from our distant contacts than
our close friends
• Since these people are different than us in bulk of info comes from different
perspectives
18. How do you interact with the
political information shared
by your weak ties?
19. Selective Exposure in the Age of Social Media:
Non-selective news aggregation services (?)
Social Endorsement
http://crx.sagepub.com/content/41/8/1042
21. Does that mean “echo
chamber” is an unnecessary
worry?
So, “echo chamber” is an only limited effect
in the department of social media exposure.
22. where different or competing views are
censored, disallowed or otherwise
underrepresented.
In media, an echo chamber is a situation in which
information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by
transmission and repetition inside an "enclosed" system...
23.
24. Final question:
What are the issues/concerns
with two of these articles
being published on Facebook?
