An empirical examination of echo chambers in US climate policy networks

Jasny, Lorien; Waggle, Joseph; Fisher, Dana R.

doi:10.1038/nclimate2666

Cited by 163 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(36 reference statements)

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“…Results also showed a strong pattern of mutual follows among senators within each party, creating two independent subnetworks where the limited information that is injected into the inner circle of each political party is shared. This is consistent with recent surveys showing how information is disproportionately shared among people with similar political ideologies [20]. An analysis of senators' direct communication network (mutual follows among senators, Fig.…”

Section: Twitter Follows Are Diagnostic Of Political Tribalismsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…A 2015 survey by Jasny and colleagues [20] emphasized that in political spheres information on climate change often reverberates within a series of "echo chambers" with relatively few opportunities for cross-fertilization. Analyses of the general public based on Twitter, in contrast, suggest that while information on political issues is exchanged primarily among users with similar ideologies, information regarding other current events can be more dynamic and at least initially starts as a "national conversation" that may eventually devolve into partisan bickering [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While numerous surveys have documented strong partisan differences in understanding and acceptance of GCC among members of the general public [12,13] and have pointed to the role of partisan media in widening such gaps [23], less is known about how political leaders receive and share such information, especially using increasingly important social media platforms such as Twitter. Specifically, are political leaders exposed to similar scientific information but responding to it based on partisan identity [21], or are they interested in and exposed to information from fundamentally different sources, as shaped by the communication networks to which they belong [20,24]? Has interest and trust in science-and notably not just climate science-truly become a partisan wedge issue in the 21st century?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trust, tribalism and tweets: has political polarization made science a “wedge issue”?

Helmuth

Gouhier

Scyphers

et al. 2016

Clim Chang Responses

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Background: Political polarization remains a major obstacle to national action on global climate change in the United States Congress, and acceptance of anthropogenic drivers strongly differs between Republicans and Democrats. But has overall interest in science also become ingrained into partisan identity, even among national political figures tasked with making ostensibly science-based policy decisions? Social media outlets such as Twitter have become a popular means of exchanging information and of portraying a carefully crafted public image. We analyzed the 78,753 unique Twitter accounts followed by U.S. senators to gauge their interests as well as the public images that their offices project to the public. In particular, we examined correlations between follows of science-related accounts and recent votes on a series of amendments defining the "sense of the Senate" on global climate change (GCC). Drawing from these social networks, we discuss how political polarization is strongly linked with the role that science -and climate science in particular -plays in the political process. Results: Our analyses show that Twitter social networks reflect political affiliation and polarization, with Senate Republicans and Democrats belonging to distinct and semi-isolated sub-networks. Notably, while follows of science-related organizations were low overall, these sub-networks were characterized by very different levels of interest in science, with Senate Democrats three times more likely to follow science-related Twitter handles than Republicans. This suggests that overt interest in science may partly define party identity. Hence, instead of being viewed as a neutral source of objective information, science may now be considered a special interest in U.S. politics. Notably, however, Republican senators who crossed party lines to vote "yea" on an amendment associated with the Keystone Pipeline bill stating that humans contribute to GCC are more similar to Democrats in their science follows than they are to their fellow Republicans. Conclusions: Our results strongly suggest that overt interest in science may now primarily be a "Democrat" value. However, opportunities exist to inject scientific information into political discussion by targeting key individuals and organizations connected to both sides of the aisle.

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Section: Twitter Follows Are Diagnostic Of Political Tribalismsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Trust, tribalism and tweets: has political polarization made science a “wedge issue”?

Helmuth

Gouhier

Scyphers

et al. 2016

Clim Chang Responses

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Centola and Baronchelli (2015) suggested that the increase in social connectedness via social media could potentially facilitate the convergence of public opinion among people who do not even know that they are implicitly coordinating with one another. Other studies show that such convergence can induce a phase transition (or non-linearity), shifting public opinion from moderate views towards extremism (Ramos et al, 2015), causing community disconnection (Gil and Zanette, 2006) and echo-chamber effects, particularly in domains with high emotional salience (Cowan, 2014;Jasny et al, 2015;Pentland, 2014). We will conclude by presenting a coarse outline for technical approaches to counteract imbalances in online communication systems.…”

Section: Practical Implications For Improving Online Communication Symentioning

confidence: 99%

How social learning adds up to a culture: from birdsong to human public opinion

Tchernichovski

Fehér

Fimiarz

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Distributed social learning may occur at many temporal and spatial scales, but it rarely adds up to a stable culture. Cultures vary in stability and diversity ( polymorphism), ranging from chaotic or drifting cultures, through cumulative polymorphic cultures, to stable monolithic cultures with high conformity levels. What features can sustain polymorphism, preventing cultures from collapsing into either chaotic or highly conforming states? We investigate this question by integrating studies across two quite separate disciplines: the emergence of song cultures in birds, and the spread of public opinion and social conventions in humans. In songbirds, the learning process has been studied in great detail, while in human studies the structure of social networks has been experimentally manipulated on large scales. In both cases, the manner in which communication signals are compressed and filtered -either during learning or while traveling through the social network -can affect culture polymorphism and stability. We suggest a simple mechanism of a shifting balance between converging and diverging social forces to explain these effects. Understanding social forces that shape cultural evolution might be useful for designing agile communication systems, which are stable and polymorphic enough to promote gradual changes in institutional behavior.

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“…These likeminded actors are probably retweeting each other's content to be part of the conversation (boyd et al, ), and are likely motivated to get information out about the topic. These interest tweets may be creating a UBI positive echo chamber (Edwards, ; Jasny, Waggle, & Fisher, ), where tweets tend to flow over short sharing chains and stay within a cluster of actors with similar content choices (Huberman & Adamic, ). Thus, these messages do little to bring new actors into the discussion space.…”

Section: Discussion: Diffusion As Social Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Tweets That Resonate: Information Flows and the Growth of Twitter's Universal Basic Income Discussion Space

Hemsley¹,

García‐Murillo²,

MacInnes³

2018

Policy & Internet

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Social media are an important space for people to discuss novel policy innovations. In particular, Twitter, whose user base is skewed toward those who disproportionately affect news coverage, and by extension the public agenda, represents a particularly useful platform for policy advocates wishing to grow their audience. This article extends theoretical understandings of information flows and the growth of networked discussion spaces by examining the online discussion space around a Universal Basic Income (UBI), which has been proposed to alleviate social tensions relating to joblessness resulting from technological advances. Using content analysis and statistical methods, we show that tweets in the UBI discussion space that inform others are the most likely to be shared, but tweets that emotionally resonate with users are the most likely to reach new audiences and therefore bring new actors into the discussion space. These findings contribute to the literature on viral events and dynamic networks, providing insight into how policies like UBI are discussed and diffuse on social media platforms like Twitter.

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An empirical examination of echo chambers in US climate policy networks

Cited by 163 publications

References 44 publications

Trust, tribalism and tweets: has political polarization made science a “wedge issue”?

Trust, tribalism and tweets: has political polarization made science a “wedge issue”?

How social learning adds up to a culture: from birdsong to human public opinion

Tweets That Resonate: Information Flows and the Growth of Twitter's Universal Basic Income Discussion Space

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