Selective expossure and social networks

Pere Masip, Carlos Ruiz and Jaume Suau presented the paper “Accidental exposure to non like-minded news through social media: Opposing voices in echo-chambers’ news feed” at the Future of Journalism 2017 Conference: Journalism in a Post-Truth Age, hosted by the University of Cardiff.

The paper presents results of a research conducted in agreement with 18 leading Spanish online news media, based on a survey (N= 6679) among their registered users. Results highlight the importance for Spanish audiences of accidental exposure and participatory formats enabled by social networks as inhibitors of selective exposure mechanisms. As news’ consumption is becoming more ‘social’, our research points out the fact that social networks like Facebook show a higher level of homophylia, more likely to have contacts from different ideological positions rather than closed ‘eco chambers’. Moreover, in online environments dominated by serendipitous exposure, pluralism is also ensured by the fact that a high number of users share news that challenge their own ideology in order to motivate debate.