Kill it With Fire! Transgressing Social Boundaries and the Diffusion of Political Ideas Online

• In Event: 404 - Section on Social Psychology Paper Session. Computational Social Science and Studying Social Behavior

Abstract

Political candidates repeat various talking points during elections, hoping they will spread through the media to a mass audience and ultimately influence voters’ decisions. Social scientists have proposed numerous theories of media effects, but lacked the technical capacity to see how new ideas could spread in real time. Drawing on a sample of 1,351 political phrases and 1.43 million webpages from the 2008 election, I argue leading partisan blogs played a major role in spreading political ideas to other blogs, particularly ideas initially said by members of the opposing party. Conservative blogs were consistently influential. However, progressive blog postings appear to slow down the diffusion of many statements on social issues, after controlling for mainstream media postings. I argue bloggers respond differently when they encounter ideas that transgress their preferred social boundaries, posting responses with less regard for timeliness or other bloggers' opinion leadership.

Author

• Noah Grand, University of California-Los Angeles