article

Birds of a Feather Tweet Together: Integrating Network and Content Analyses to Examine Cross-Ideology Exposure on Twitter

Authors:

Itai Himelboim,

Stephen McCreery,

Marc SmithAuthors Info & Claims

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 18, Issue 2

Pages 40 - 60

https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12001

Published: 01 January 2013 Publication History

Abstract

This study integrates network and content analyses to examine exposure to cross-ideological political views on Twitter. We mapped the Twitter networks of 10 controversial political topics, discovered clusters - subgroups of highly self-connected users - and coded messages and links in them for political orientation. We found that Twitter users are unlikely to be exposed to cross-ideological content from the clusters of users they followed, as these were usually politically homogeneous. Links pointed at grassroots web pages e.g.: blogs more frequently than traditional media websites. Liberal messages, however, were more likely to link to traditional media. Last, we found that more specific topics of controversy had both conservative and liberal clusters, while in broader topics, dominant clusters reflected conservative sentiment.

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cover image Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication Volume 18, Issue 2

January 2013

135 pages

EISSN:1083-6101

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John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

United States

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Published: 01 January 2013

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3657054.3657269
Rao AMorstatter FLerman KRokne JWang D(2023)Retweets Amplify the Echo Chamber EffectProceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining10.1145/3625007.3627485(30-37)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2023
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