A Mixed Method Field Experiment Using Social Media

使用社交媒体的混合方法现场实验

• 批准号: 1756140
• 负责人: Christopher Bail
• 金额: $ 22.4万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-05-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1756140&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mixed; Method; Field; Experiment; Using

The American public remains deeply divided about a range of social issues from inequality to immigration. Social media sites are often blamed for deepening such divisions by creating "echo chambers," or preventing people from being exposed to opinions from those who do not share their views. This research examines whether experimentally disrupting such echo chambers--by exposing a large sample of two antagonistic groups to social media messages from the opposing group--can increase moderation and compromise. The results of this research will thereby promote cooperation by helping policy makers and industry leaders design whether and how to regulate social media sites and ensure the inclusive deliberation that is essential for the function of our public institutions. Social scientists have become increasingly concerned that selective exposure to information within social media echo chambers may contribute to political polarization and divergent public attitudes about controversial issues such as inequality and immigration. This research draws upon social network analysis and social psychology in order to develop a set of hypotheses about the relationship between social media echo chambers and political attitudes and evaluates them via a mixed-method field experiment on Twitter that combines quantitative surveys, automated text analysis, and interviews with a large sample of Americans.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

美国公众在从不平等到移民等一系列社会问题上仍然存在严重分歧。社交媒体网站经常被指责为加深这种分歧的罪魁祸首，因为它们建立了“回音室”，或者阻止人们接触到那些与他们观点不同的人的观点。这项研究考察了实验性地扰乱这样的回音室--通过让两个敌对群体的大样本接触来自对立群体的社交媒体信息--是否可以增加温和和妥协。因此，这项研究的结果将有助于政策制定者和行业领袖设计是否以及如何监管社交媒体网站，并确保对我们的公共机构的运作至关重要的包容性审议，从而促进合作。社会科学家越来越担心，选择性地接触社交媒体回音室中的信息，可能会导致政治两极分化，以及公众对不平等和移民等有争议问题的不同态度。这项研究利用社会网络分析和社会心理学，以开发一套关于社交媒体回音室和政治态度之间的关系的假设，并通过Twitter上的混合方法现场实验对其进行评估，该实验结合了定量调查、自动文本分析和对大量美国人的采访。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。