Cascading Homophily: Partisan Websites Audience and Polarization Processes.

• In Event: Political Information Online: Its Content and Consequences

Abstract

Media consumers favor certain websites due to their content and audience. This attraction is explained in terms of the need for self-consistency, while media consumption is framed as an act of taste performance and self-definition – notions that are encapsulated in the concept of “cascading homophily” introduced in the article. This individual characteristic is determined by one's use of partisan-media websites catering to a homogeneous, like-minded consumership, a behavior that places one in a homophilic sphericule. Based on pre- and post-election surveys and web-tracking technology that recorded online-exposure behavior (N=400), it was found that individuals with more extreme ideology present higher levels of cascading homophily and that, longitudinally, cascading homophily is associated with ideological polarization, intolerance and accessibility of political self-definition.

Author

• Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Tel Aviv U