Homophily, Social Media and the 2016 Election
Source: The Ringer
https://theringer.com/social-media-echo-chamber-2016-election-facebook-twitter-b433df38a4cb#.4yaf93p76
Facebook’s 2013 addition of the “unfollow” feature on Facebook has allowed users to tailor who they hear from on Facebook, blocking certain friends from their newsfeed without having to unfriend them. I have done this myself, unfollowing members of my social network who post too often or post annoying things. However, this seemingly inconsequential feature has made all the difference in the past few years in constructing the online realities that all of us now live in. Facebook users unfollowed people that shared or posted political news/commentary that they disagreed with, causing what once was a somewhat equally connected digital network to mirror our more homophilic physical networks.
The Facebook users were unknowingly following the network principle of homophily, when similar nodes of a network cluster near other similar nodes (in this the case the similarity being political views). This led to online echoing chambers, with users clustered into mostly separate liberal and conservative bubbles, with the occasional independent acting as a local bridge. The echoing chamber phenomenon led to many users being totally unaware how many people in their social network supported the presidential candidate they disagree with. In addition to this, the ideological similarity in these clusters led to an increased social influence of those within each cluster, leading to political ideas spreading throughout the whole cluster fairly easily. Finally, it caused a lack of understanding among users, as each side did not hear the other perspective from their Facebook friends. All of this culminated in the shock we saw in the Cornell and liberal community when Donald Trump won the presidency.