The principle of homophily says that people associate with other groups of people who are mostly like themselves. Many online communities are structured around groups of socially similar individuals. On Twitter, however, people are exposed to multiple, diverse points of view through the public timeline. The authors captured 30,000 tweets about the shooting of George Tiller, a late-term abortion doctor, and the subsequent conversations among pro-life and pro-choice advocates. They found that replies between like-minded individuals strengthen group identity, whereas replies between different-minded individuals reinforce in-group and out-group affiliation. Their results show that people are exposed to broader viewpoints than they were before but are limited in their ability to engage in meaningful discussion. They conclude with implications for different kinds of social participation on Twitter more generally.
Abcarian, R. ( 2009, June 10). "Abortion fatigue" on both sides as Kansas clinic closes. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://pewforum.org/Religion-News/Abortion-fatigue-on-both-sides-as-Kansas-clinic-closes.aspx
2.
Adamic, L., & Glance, N. ( 2005, May). The political blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: Divided they blog. Paper presented at the proceedings of WWW2005, Chiba, Japan.
3.
Bainbridge, W., & Stark, R. ( 1981). Friendship, religion and the occult: A network study . Review of Religious Research, 22, 313-327.
4.
Banta, T.J. ( 1964). The Kennedy assassination: Early thoughts and emotions . Public Opinion Quarterly, 28, 216-224.
5.
Baron, R., Hoppe, S., Linneweh, B., & Rogers, D. ( 1996). Social corroboration and opinion extremity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 537-560.
6.
Barstow, D. ( 2009, July 25). An abortion battle, fought to the death. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/us/26tiller.html
7.
Brewer, M.B. ( 1979). In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation: A cognitive motivational analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 307-324.
8.
Caldeira, G.A., & Patterson, S.C. (1987). Political friendship in the legislature. Journal of Politics, 49, 953-975.
9.
Daniels, J. ( 2009). Cyber racism: White supremacy online and the new attack on civil rights. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
10.
Deutschman, P.J., & Danielson, W.A. (1960). Diffusion of knowledge of a major news story. Journalism Quarterly, 37, 345-355.
11.
Gantz, W., & Trenholm, S. ( 1979). Why people pass on news: Motivations for diffusion. Journalism Quarterly, 56, 365-370.
12.
Gerstenfield, P.B., Grant, D.R., & Chiang, C.-P. ( 2003). Hate online: A content analysis of extremist internet sites. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 3(1), 29-44.
13.
Gilbert, E., Bergstrom, T., & Karahalios, K. (2009, January). Blogs are echo chambers, blogs are echo chambers. Paper presented at the proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences , Waikoloa, Big Island, HI.
14.
Golder, S. ( 2009, July 14). Oprah, Iran and Twitter growth [Web log message] . Retrieved from http://scottgolder.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/oprah-iran-twitter/
15.
Greenberg, B.S. ( 1964). Diffusion of news of the Kennedy assassination. Public Opinion Quarterly, 28, 225-232.
16.
Hargittai, E. ( 2008). The digital reproduction of inequality. In D. Grusky (Ed.), Social stratification (pp. 936-944). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
17.
Hargittai, E., Gallo, J., & Kane, M. ( 2008). Cross-ideological discussions among conservatives and liberal bloggers. Public Choice, 134, 67-86.
Hurlbert, J., Haines, V., & Beggs, J. ( 2000). Core networks and tie activation: what kinds of routine networks allocate resources in non-routine situations. American Sociological Review, 65, 598-618.
20.
Ibarra, H. ( 1992). Homophily and differential returns: Sex differences in network structure and access in an advertising firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 422-427.
21.
Ibrahim, A., Ye, J., & Hoffner, C. ( 2008). Diffusion of news of the shuttle Columbia disaster: The role of emotional responses and motives for interpersonal communication. Communication Research Reports, 25, 91-101.
22.
Kelly, J., Fisher, D., & Smith, M. ( 2005, May). Debate, division, and diversity: Political discourse networks in USENET news-groups. Paper presented at the proceedings of the Second Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice (DIAC 05), Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.
23.
Krebs, V. ( 2000). Working in the connected world. IHRIM Journal, 4, 89-91.
24.
Kubey, R., & Peluso, T. ( 1990). Emotional response as a cause of interpersonal news diffusion: The case of the Space Shuttle Strategy. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 34, 69-76.
25.
Lazarsfeld, P., & Merton, R.K. ( 1954). Friendship as a social process: A substantive and methodological analysis. In M. Berger, T. Abel, & C. H. Page (Eds.), Freedom and control in modern society (pp. 18-66). New York, NY: Van Nostrand.
26.
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J.M. ( 2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review Sociology, 27, 415-444.
27.
Miller, D.C. ( 1945). A research note on mass communication: How our community heard about the death of President Roosevelt. American Sociological Review, 10, 691-694.
28.
Nickerson, R. ( 1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises . Review of General Psychology, 2, 175-220.
29.
Palen, L., & Liu, S.B. ( 2007, April). Citizen communications in crisis: Anticipating a future of ICT-supported public participation. Paper presented at the proceedings of SIGCHI 2007, San Jose, CA.
30.
PEJ New Media Index. (2009, June 10). Political extremism (at home and abroad) dominates the blogosphere . Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/index_report/political_extremism_home_and_abroad_dominates_blogosphere
31.
Pennebaker, J.W., Booth, R.J., & Francis, M.E. ( 2007). Linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC2007) [computer software]. Retrieved from http://www.liwc.net/
32.
Schafer, J. ( 2002). Spinning the web of hate: Web-based hate propagation by extremist organizations. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 9, 68-98.
33.
Sheatsley, P.B., & Feldman, J.J. ( 1964). The assassination of President Kennedy: A preliminary report on public relations and behavior. Public Opinion Quarterly , 28, 189-215.
34.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. ( 2001). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
35.
Stumpe, J., & Davey, M. ( 2009, May 31). Abortion doctor shot to death in Kansas church . The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/01tiller.html
36.
Sunstein, C. ( 2001). Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
37.
Sunstein, C. ( 2008). The law of group polarization. In J. S. Fishkin & P. Laslett (Eds.), Debating deliberative democracy (pp. 80-101). Cambridge, MA : Blackwell.
