The precise mechanisms by which the information ecosystem polarizes society remain elusive. Focusing on political sorting in networks, we develop a computational model that examines how social network structure changes when individuals participate in …
Increasing levels of political animosity in the United States invite speculation about whether polarization extends to aspects of daily life. However, empirical study about the relationship between political ideologies and lifestyle choices is …
Though prior studies have analyzed the textual characteristics of online comments about politics, less is known about how selection into commenting behavior and exposure to other people's comments changes the tone and content of political discourse. …
Political elites sometimes seek to delegitimize election results using unsubstantiated claims of fraud. Most recently, Donald Trump sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 US presidential election by falsely alleging widespread fraud. Our study …
We examine the role of overconfidence in news judgment using two large nationally representative survey samples. First, we show that three in four Americans overestimate their relative ability to distinguish between legitimate and false news …
In this study, we analyze for the first time newly available engagement data covering millions of web links shared on Facebook to describe how and by which categories of U.S. users different types of news are seen and shared on the platform. We focus …
We introduce the rationale for a new peer-reviewed scholarly journal, theJournal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media. The journal is intendedto create a new venue for research on digital media and address severaldeficiencies in the current …
Does the internet facilitate selective exposure to politically congenial content? To answer this question, I introduce and validate large-N behavioral data on Americans' online media consumption in both 2015 and 2016. I then construct a simple …
What role do ideologically extreme media play in the polarization of society? Here we report results from a randomized longitudinal field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey (N = 1,037) in which participants were …
Objectives To assess the quantity and type of vaccine-related information Americans consume online and its relationship to social media use and attitudes toward vaccines. Methods Analysis of individual-level web browsing data linked with survey …