Testing the Strength of Weak Ties on Twitter and in Politics
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/18/17989856/twitter-polarization-echo-chambers-social-media
Political polarization is nothing new – yet why does America seem more sharply divided than ever before? According to many social scientists, modern communications are key to understanding the promulgation of ideas which ultimately increase societal divisions. Twitter is specifically a terrific platform to study how media affects polarization, given its recent importance in American politics.
This article adds a novel perspective to an academic debate over whether social media reinforces political polarization via echo chambers and high levels of network clustering. Many studies have concluded that political echo chambers exist online, and people are thus not exposed to new ideas, leading to polarization. This study examines whether exposing Twitter users to ideas outside of their network actually decreases polarization and increases openness to new ideas. Surprisingly, in a sharp rebut to Grannovetter’s strength of weak ties theory, the researchers found that exposure to new ideas outside of a user’s digital echo chamber actually increased polarization.
This finding is pretty shocking in relation to the strength of weak ties theory discussed in class. According to the theory, weak ties yield a lot of influence in a person’s network because they expose a person to new ideas. Weak ties can often build bridges between two clusters in a network, such as between two political parties. While the study in this article had participants follow a robot Twitter account instead of an acquaintance, exposure to new information seemed to enforce clustered political networks rather than diffusing them. I’m curious to see what further research political scientists conduct on increasing amounts of polarization online in relation to network theory.