Tweeting From Left to Right: Is Online Political Communication More Than an Echo Chamber?

Discussion of the Newtown shootings in 2012 reflected a dynamic process, beginning as a national conversation before transforming into a polarized exchange. With respect to both political and nonpolitical issues, liberals were more likely than conservatives to engage in cross-ideological dissemination; this is an important asymmetry with respect to the structure of communication that is consistent with psychological theory and research bearing on ideological differences in epistemic, existential, and relational motivation. Overall, we conclude that previous work may have overestimated the degree of ideological segregation in social-media usage.

Source: Psychological Science - October 13, 2015 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Barbera, P., Jost, J. T., Nagler, J., Tucker, J. A., Bonneau, R. Tags: General Article Source Type: research