Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

II. Perspectives
media users report encountering a variety
Social
political beliefs in their online networks, at
of
according to a 2016 Pew Research Center
least
of 4,500 people in the United States (see
survey
of Facebook/Twitter users who say that most of the people in their
%
have political beliefs that are_____ to theirs
networks
2016, a team of researchers from Oxford
In
Stanford University and Microsoft
University,
whether internet use had led to
investigated
ideological segregation. They reported
increased
social networks and search engines are
that
with an increase in the average
associated
distance between individuals
ideological
of polarization). However, they also
(ameasure
that social networks and search engine
found
were “associated with an increase in an
use
Guess
Actual
exposure to material from his or
individual’s
less preferred side of the political spectrum”
her
et al 2016). The researchers noted that
(Flaxman
people still access online news by directly
most
their mainstream news websites of
visiting
not through social media (though this
choice,
have changed since then) and that the size of
may
effects of social media was relatively modest.
the
research team in 2018 reported that Twitter users
A
“to a large degree” exposed to opinions that
are
with their own. They also reported that those
agree
share political content from both sides of
who
political divide— “who try to bridge the echo
the
a social network cost in terms
chambers”—incur
how many followers they have and how many
of
their posts receive (Garimella et al 2018).
likes
a separate study, also in 2018, concluded
However,
“those who are interested in politics and
that
with diverse media diets tend to avoid
those
chambers … [and] only a small segment of
echo
population are ever likely to find themselves
the
an echo chamber” (Dubois, Blank 2018).
in
finally, researchers from Facebook
And
the existence of echo chambers
investigated
10 million users and found that while
among
feeds tend to show people less diverse
news
2
EU immigration as % of UK population
% of UK child benefit paid to kids living in EU
% of EU budget spent on admin
% of international investment into UK by EU
% of international investment into UK by China
0
10 20 30 40 50
Misperceptions among UK survey respondents about how the EU aects life in the UK. Data
Figure 2.1
source: UK newspaper The Financial Times.
Figure 2.2).
Facebook
23
5 53 19
Twitter
17 6 39 37
Pew Research Center survey conducted 12 July–
Figure 2.2
8 August 2016, “The political environment on social media”: most
Facebook and Twitter users’ online networks contain a mix of people
with a variety of political beliefs.
political information, this was driven more
42