The Social Network Political Bubble
In the growing social media space, most users encounter a mix of political views. But consistent conservatives are twice as likely as the typical Facebook user to see political opinions on Facebook that are mostly in line with their own views (47% vs. 23%). Consistent liberals, on average, hear a somewhat wider range of views than consistent conservatives – about a third (32%) mainly see posts in line with their own opinions.
But that doesn’t mean consistent liberals necessarily embrace contrasting views. Roughly four-in-ten consistent liberals on Facebook (44%) say they have blocked or defriended someone on social media because they disagreed with something that person posted about politics. This compares with 31% of consistent conservatives and just 26% of all Facebook users who have done the same.
Notes:
Liberals are more likely to defriend conservatives, but Conservatives are less likely to have liberal friends to defriend in the first place.
Folksonomies: politics confirmation bias
Taxonomies:
/law, govt and politics/politics (0.394451)
/technology and computing/internet technology/social network (0.309350)
/law, govt and politics/politics/political parties (0.266823)
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Concepts:
Facebook (0.947719): website | dbpedia | freebase | yago | crunchbase
Political philosophy (0.736651): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Sociology (0.692186): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Political spectrum (0.625326): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Liberalism (0.592660): dbpedia | freebase
French Revolution (0.514065): dbpedia | freebase
Social information processing (0.510487): dbpedia | freebase
Right-wing politics (0.509415): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Political Polarization & Media Habits