Birds of a Feather Tweet Together: Integrating Network and Content Analyses to Examine Cross-Ideology Exposure on Twitter

TLDR

The study investigates how Twitter users are exposed to cross‑ideological political views by integrating network and content analyses. The authors mapped Twitter networks around 10 controversial topics, identified self‑connected clusters, and coded user messages and links for political orientation. Users rarely encounter cross‑ideological content from the clusters they follow, which are generally politically homogeneous; links within clusters favor grassroots blogs, while liberal posts more often link to traditional media, and topic specificity influences cluster diversity, with broader topics dominated by conservative sentiment.

Abstract

This study integrates network and content analyses to examine exposure to cross-ideological political views on Twitter. We mapped the Twitter networks of 10 controversial political topics, discovered clusters – subgroups of highly self-connected users – and coded messages and links in them for political orientation. We found that Twitter users are unlikely to be exposed to cross-ideological content from the clusters of users they followed, as these were usually politically homogeneous. Links pointed at grassroots web pages (e.g. : blogs) more frequently than traditional media websites. Liberal messages, however, were more likely to link to traditional media. Last, we found that more specific topics of controversy had both conservative and liberal clusters, while in broader topics, dominant clusters reflected conservative sentiment.