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Homophily in Social Media and News Polarization

Author

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  • Jeon, Doh-Shin
  • Abreu, Luis
  • Shahanaghi, Sara

Abstract

We consider an ad-financed media firm that chooses the ideological location of its news when consumers who directly receive the news can share it with their followers on social media. When the firm maximizes the breadth of news sharing, it tends to produce polarized news if the mean (the variance) of ideological locations of the followers of a direct consumer is a convex (concave) function of the latter’s location. This implies that it is the curvature, rather than the slope, of homophily that determines news polarization so that surprisingly, larger homophily at the center (extremes) can lead to (no) polarization.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeon, Doh-Shin & Abreu, Luis & Shahanaghi, Sara, 2020. "Homophily in Social Media and News Polarization," TSE Working Papers 20-1081, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:124150
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Larcinese, Valentino & Puglisi, Riccardo & Snyder Jr., James M., 2011. "Partisan bias in economic news: Evidence on the agenda-setting behavior of U.S. newspapers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1178-1189, October.
    2. Ron Berman & Zsolt Katona, 2020. "Curation Algorithms and Filter Bubbles in Social Networks," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(2), pages 296-316, March.
    3. Halberstam, Yosh & Knight, Brian, 2016. "Homophily, group size, and the diffusion of political information in social networks: Evidence from Twitter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 73-88.
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    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/27dls12b6d8aor7i6sipg9ie3g is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Emeric Henry & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev, 2022. "Checking and Sharing Alt-Facts," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 55-86, August.
    3. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/27dls12b6d8aor7i6sipg9ie3g is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/27dls12b6d8aor7i6sipg9ie3g is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/27dls12b6d8aor7i6sipg9ie3g is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Leonardo Madio, 2023. "Content Moderation and Advertising in Social Media Platforms," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0297, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    7. Leonardo Madio & Martin Quinn, 2024. "Content Moderation and Advertising in Social Media Platforms," CESifo Working Paper Series 11169, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

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