Echo Chambers or Doom Scrolling? Homophily, Intensity, and Exposure to Elite Social Media Messages

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231202969
• Author: Jake Haselswerdt,Jeffrey A. Fine
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 199–212

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129231202969

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Echo Chambers or Doom Scrolling?

Homophily, Intensity, and Exposure to Elite

Social Media Messages

Jake Haselswerdt

1

and Jeffrey A. Fine

2

Abstract

While existing research shows why politicians’social media messages spread online, we know comparatively less about

the types of individuals who see these messages. The current study tests whether Americans’exposure to posts from

political elites is best explained by their partisan allegiance (homophily) or the intensity of their political engagement. To

test this question, we employ data from a 2020 Cooperative Election Study module that asks respondents how often they

encounter social media posts from various political f‌igures. We f‌ind that both homophily and intensity characterize

exposure to elite messages: partisans and ideologues not only tend to encounter posts from politicians on their own side

of the aisle most often, but they also encounter posts from politicians on the opposite side more oft en than do in-

dependent or moderate respondents. The role of intensity relative to homophily is greatest for posts by former

President Donald Trump, which Democrats were more likely to encounter than Republicans or independents.

Keywords

social media, public opinion, social networks, partisanship, echo chambers

Political f‌igures are active on social media, using these

platforms to communicate directly with the public, to raise

money for campaigns, and to mobilize voters. Some of

these messagesget widespread attention, as they are shared

thousands of times and may be included in news coverage

even beyondthe conf‌ines of the social media platform(s) on

which they were posted. While existing studies give us

insight into the factors that shape the content of these

messages and the extent to which they spread online, we

know comparatively less aboutthe types of individuals who

see these messages. It is unclearwhether Americans tend to

see only messagesfrom politicians theysupport, or whether

they encountermessages from acrossthe political spectrum.

There is ample reason to expect elite messages to be

seen predominantly by individuals who have similar

partisan aff‌iliations or political ideologies. One potential

source of homophily in social networks off‌line and online

is selective exposure (Barber´

a et al. 2015), where indi-

viduals navigate within “echo chambers”by following

only political f‌igures they support, much as they might

surround themselves with like-minded family members,

friends, neighbors, and co-workers in their daily lives

(e.g., Christakis and Fowler 2009;Miller, Lynn, and

James 2001). A second mechanism potentially driving

homophily is “f‌ilter bubbles,”where social media algo-

rithms push content to users based on their previous

behavior online (e.g., Pariser 2011).

There also are reasons to expect that exposure to elite

political messages might be more complicated, with in-

dividuals on both sides of the political/ideological spec-

trum seeing them frequently. First, with some social media

messages receiving coverage from more traditional news

outlets, it is possible for a wider audience to encounter

these messages regularly. For example, before he was

barred from the platform, Donald Trump’s tweets were

shown verbatim in television, online, and print news, and

therefore would be diff‌icult to avoid for individuals who

are even casual followers of current events, regardless of

1

University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

2

Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jake Haselswerdt, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs,

University of Missouri, Locust Street Building, Columbia, MO 65201,

USA.

Email: haselswerdtj@missouri.edu

Data Availability Statement included at the end of the article