Here’s How Social Media Could Threaten Democracy
“Here’s how social media could threaten democracy — even without the help of Russians” discusses the impact of the rapid spread of information on social media. The article explains a research study that tested how online social networks impact decision making. 2,500 people were split into groups of 24. Each group was split into a yellow and a purple team. If your team wins a supermajority of a vote, each member gets $2 and the other team’s members get 50 cents. If no team has a supermajority, no one earns money. Therefore, opponents are encouraged to compromise. The experimenters also designed different games that skewed the network in order to make each subgroup believe that either the yellow or purple team was at a disadvantage by creating an uneven yellow: purple ratio within subgroups. Through analyzing the behavior of the participants, researches concluded that when teams were split 50-50 purple and yellow, participants were more likely to compromise. Meanwhile, when one team held a majority in a subgroup, those team members were more likely to hold an extreme view. This concept also applies to online networks, especially in regard to party politics.
Therefore, if you are a democrat and are exposed to extremely liberal content online, you may transform your views and become a more extreme liberal. Meanwhile, if you are exposed to diverse, well-rounded media, you may be more likely to understand different political views. Online networks, however, perpetuate one-sided media consumption and contribute to political polarization.
This type of political network may be related to the Structural Balance Property. When a group of people encounters a group they dislike, structural balance exists. In the skewed version of the game when yellow and purple players fail to negotiate, yellow players have positive feelings towards one another and purple players have positive feelings towards one another. However, members of opposite color teams will likely have negative feelings towards one. These opinions are therefore unlikely to change, as when there is tension during the game, players on the same team will display negative feelings towards members of the other team. When teams are split 50-50, all participants may have positive feelings towards one another, so in this case, the game would also be balances.
This study also relates to the University of Michigan (2004) study we discussed in class which analyzes networks of people reading political blogs. People who read liberal blogs are more likely to be led to read more liberal blogs in the future. The same holds true for conservative blogs. There is a resulting echo chamber effect, as when these networks are formed, there are two separate clusters. Few people are reading blogs that represent different ends on the political spectrum.