Explaining attitude-consistent exposure on social network sites: The role of ideology, political involvement, and network characteristics
- Author(s)
- Franz Reiter, Raffael Heiss, Jörg Matthes
- Abstract
There are rising concerns that social network sites (SNS) facilitate the creation of echo chambers, in which attitude-consistent information becomes the norm while attitude-challenging information is avoided. This study aims to investigate theoretically derived predictors of attitude-consistent and attitude-challenging exposure on SNS. We theorize that three key sets of predictors may influence attitude-consistent and attitude-challenging exposure: ideology, cognitive, and behavioral indicators of political involvement, and network characteristics. In a two-wave panel study, we predict the frequency of attitude-consistent and attitude-challenging exposure as well as relative attitude-consistent exposure, measured as attitude-consistent exposure as a share of overall opinion exposure. The results demonstrate that extreme ideological positions, higher political knowledge, and low-effort political participation predicted an increase in (relative) attitude-consistent exposure. Cross-social class exposure predicted a decrease in (relative) attitude-consistent exposure. The findings challenge existing arguments that SNS may per se facilitate attitude-consistent exposure.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication
- Journal
- Social Science Computer Review
- Volume
- 41
- Pages
- 1207-1226
- No. of pages
- 20
- ISSN
- 0894-4393
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393211056224
- Publication date
- 2021
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 508007 Communication science
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Sciences(all), Library and Information Sciences, Law, Computer Science Applications
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/explaining-attitudeconsistent-exposure-on-social-network-sites-the-role-of-ideology-political-involvement-and-network-characteristics(0916e705-f3c6-429f-aaad-dc3364be379f).html