Abstract
Echo chambers in online social networks, whereby users’ beliefs are reinforced by interactions with like-minded peers and insulation from others’ points of view, have been decried as a cause of political polarization. Here, we investigate their role in the debate around the 2016 US elections on Reddit, a fundamental platform for the success of Donald Trump. We identify Trump vs Clinton supporters and reconstruct their political interaction network. We observe a preference for cross-cutting political interactions between the two communities rather than within-group interactions, thus contradicting the echo chamber narrative. Furthermore, these interactions are asymmetrical: Clinton supporters are particularly eager to answer comments by Trump supporters. Beside asymmetric heterophily, users show assortative behavior for activity, and disassortative, asymmetric behavior for popularity. Our findings are tested against a null model of random interactions, by using two different approaches: a network rewiring which preserves the activity of nodes, and a logit regression which takes into account possible confounding factors. Finally, we explore possible socio-demographic implications. Users show a tendency for geographical homophily and a small positive correlation between cross-interactions and voter abstention. Our findings shed light on public opinion formation on social media, calling for a better understanding of the social dynamics at play in this context.
Highlights
Echo chambers in online social networks, whereby users’ beliefs are reinforced by interactions with like-minded peers and insulation from others’ points of view, have been decried as a cause of political polarization
Despite the political polarization, these groups tend to interact more across than among themselves, that is, the network exhibits heterophily rather than homophily
Our findings show that Reddit has been a tool for political discussion between opposing points of view during the 2016 elections
Summary
Echo chambers in online social networks, whereby users’ beliefs are reinforced by interactions with like-minded peers and insulation from others’ points of view, have been decried as a cause of political polarization. We investigate their role in the debate around the 2016 US elections on Reddit, a fundamental platform for the success of Donald Trump. The present study shows that polarization around a highly controversial issue, such as 2016 U.S Presidential e lections[29], can co-exist with a large presence of cross-cutting interactions The nature of these interactions might even increase polarization via “backfire effect”[30], as recently empirically found for Twitter[22]. Our findings call for a better understanding of the social dynamics at play in this context before suggesting technical solutions for such social systems, which could have unintended consequences
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