Sociality as Predictor of Filter Bubbles: A Case Study of Danes' Private Facebook Newsfeeds

• In Event: Filter Bubbles: From Academic Debate to Robust Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Social media led by Facebook’s newsfeed account for an increasingly larger part of people’s content exposure worldwide (e.g. Boczkowski, 2017) and interests in outlining filter bubbles (defined as users in non-overlapping content segments) and lack of social cohesion have increased during the last 10 years within communication studies. The aim of this panel presentation is to examine to what extend we can detect non-overlapping content segments in the newsfeed for a broad national sample outside the U.S. to supplement existing studies (e.g. Baksky et al, 2014). The aim is to discuss how the newsfeed serves as a content platform, able to encourage social cohesion and act as a shared public arena where all people meet around shared content in a potential participatory democracy (Dewey, 1946). The study presented shows no effects on demographics, but significant effects on sociality (number of friends, number of group memberships and number of page likes) as a predictor for being part of filter bubbles outside the majority.

Authors

• Anja Bechmann, Aarhus U

• Kristoffer L Nielbo, U of Southern Denmark