Related papers: Rethinking the filter bubble? Developing a researc…
Polarization arises when the underlying network connecting the members of a community or society becomes characterized by highly connected groups with weak inter-group connectivity. The increasing polarization, the strengthening of echo…
Recommendation systems underpin the serving of nearly all online content in the modern age. From Youtube and Netflix recommendations, to Facebook feeds and Google searches, these systems are designed to filter content to the predicted…
The theory of echo chambers, which suggests that online political discussions take place in conditions of ideological homogeneity, has recently gained popularity as an explanation for patterns of political polarization and radicalization…
With the availability of cell phones, internet, social media etc. the interconnectedness of people within most societies has increased drastically over the past three decades. Across the same timespan, we are observing the phenomenon of…
This paper examines how social media algorithms and filter bubbles contribute to the fragmentation of online discourse, fostering ideological divides and undermining shared understanding. Drawing on Michael Sandels philosophical emphasis on…
While social media make it easy to connect with and access information from anyone, they also facilitate basic influence and unfriending mechanisms that may lead to segregated and polarized clusters known as "echo chambers." Here we study…
We analyze online collective evaluation processes through positive and negative votes in various social media. We find two modes of collective evaluations that stem from the existence of filter bubbles. Above a threshold of collective…
The growing prominence of social media in public discourse has led to a greater scrutiny of the quality of online information and the role it plays in amplifying political polarization. However, studies of polarization on social media…
This study investigates echo chambers in social networks through an analysis of Twitter news accounts. Utilizing bias labels from the AllSides website, we construct a dataset representing six dimensions of news bias. Through manual…
Early optimism saw possibilities for social media to renew democratic discourse, marked by hopes for individuals from diverse backgrounds to find opportunities to learn from and interact with others different from themselves. This optimism…
Contrary to expectations that the increased connectivity offered by the internet and particularly Online Social Networks (OSNs) would result in broad consensus on contentious issues, we instead frequently observe the formation of polarised…
We present a novel model for the effect of echo chambers, filter bubbles, and reinforcement on election results. Our model extends the well known voter model with zealots to include reinforcement. We analyze the behaviour of the model,…
Extended Reality (XR) technologies enable the personalized mediation of an individual's perceivable reality across modalities, thereby creating a Personalized Reality (PR). While this may lead to individually beneficial effects in the form…
Large language models (LLMs) powered conversational search systems have already been used by hundreds of millions of people, and are believed to bring many benefits over conventional search. However, while decades of research and public…
Participation on social media platforms has many benefits but also poses substantial threats. Users often face an unintended loss of privacy, are bombarded with mis-/disinformation, or are trapped in filter bubbles due to over-personalized…
An educated and informed consumption of media content has become a challenge in modern times. With the shift from traditional news outlets to social media and similar venues, a major concern is that readers are becoming encapsulated in…
In the age of information abundance, attention is a coveted resource. Social media platforms vigorously compete for users' engagement, influencing the evolution of their opinions on a variety of topics. With recommendation algorithms often…
Priority users (e.g., verified profiles on Twitter) are social media users whose content is promoted by recommendation algorithms. However, the impact of this heterogeneous user influence on opinion dynamics, such as polarization phenomena,…
Social media influence online activity by recommending to users content strongly correlated with what they have preferred in the past. In this way they constrain users within filter bubbles that strongly limit their exposure to new or…
Despite their playful purpose social media changed the way users access information, debate, and form their opinions. Recent studies, indeed, showed that users online tend to promote their favored narratives and thus to form polarized…