City Research Online

Abstract

Polarization of views (known as ideological polarization) is one of the greatest societal challenges of our time, potentially sewing distrust and hate among individuals and communities and threatening to undermine the fabric of democracy. Divisive issues such as abortion and gun control are ever-present and can drive issue polarization, and even affective polarization—a disdain for ‘the other side,’ which can further divide society. Social media has been flagged as a breeding ground for polarized views, with private groups and personalized algorithms facilitating selfcreation of echo chambers that may lead to polarization. While there is prior research on the technological influences on view strengthening, scant Human-centered research exists and most of it has focused on view change in general, rather than view strengthening specifically. To investigate peoples’ experiences of view strengthening on social media, we interviewed 10 people who recently strengthened their views on important topics. While some took steps to avoid creating echo chambers (e.g., by seeking out opposing views), others intentionally created them to allow their views to strengthen without interference. These findings have important implications for designing social media platforms that support careful and conscious view strengthening while mitigating against the risk of information manipulation.

Publication Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Beall, S., Makri, S. & McKay, D. (2023). Stronger Than Yesterday: Investigating Peoples’ Experiences of View Strengthening on Social Media. Paper presented at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 27-31 Oct 2023, London, UK, which is to be published in final form at https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/23739231. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
Publisher Keywords:	Human-Information Interaction, echo chambers, personalization, view strengthening, polarization
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Computer Science > Human Computer Interaction Design

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