Political polarization on twitter: Implications for the use of social media in digital governments
Political polarization on twitter: Implications for the use of social media in digital governments
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DOI：
10.1016/j.giq.2016.04.007
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发表时间：
2016-10-01
影响因子：
7.8
通讯作者：
Kim, Sun Hyoung
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hong, Sounman;Kim, Sun Hyoung
本研究调查了关于社交媒体平台在党派两极分化中的作用的两种相互竞争的观点。 “回声室”观点侧重于社交媒体高度分散、定制和利基导向的方面，并表明这些场所会助长公众舆论的更大政治两极分化。另一种观点，我们称之为“横切互动”观点，侧重于互联网和社交媒体的开放性，只需点击一下即可提出不同的意见。因此，这种观点认为，两极分化在这些渠道上不会造成特别问题。这项研究利用美国众议院议员在政治意识形态立场上的差异，估计了政客的意识形态立场与其 Twitter 读者规模之间的关联。证据显示推特读者群存在强烈的两极分化，这支持了回音室观点。最后，我们讨论了这一证据对政府利用社交媒体收集公众新想法和意见的影响。 (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. 保留所有权利。
This study investigates two competing opinions regarding the role of social media platforms in partisan polarization. The "echo chambers" view focuses on the highly fragmented, customized, and niche-oriented aspects of social media and suggests these venues foster greater political polarization of public opinion. An alternative, which we term the "crosscutting interactions" view, focuses on the openness of the Internet and social media, with different opinions just a click away. This view thus argues that polarization would not be especially problematic on these outlets. Exploiting the variation among members of the U.S. House of Representatives in measured positions of political ideology, this study estimates the association between politicians' ideological positions and the size of their Twitter readership. The evidence shows a strong polarization on Twitter readership, which supports the echo chambers view. Lastly, we discuss the implications of this evidence for governments' use of social media in collecting new ideas and opinions from the public. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.