Desegregating Virtual Spaces: A Facebook Field Experiment in Jerusalem

• In Event: New Approaches for Prejudice Reduction and Depolarization

Abstract

Can online exposure to news about and created by out-groups promote perspective-taking and reduce prejudice in deeply divided societies? Can such exposure persuade in-group members to consume additional out-group news? We address these questions through a field experiment designed in collaboration with a Jerusalem-based NGO that translates popular Facebook posts and disseminates them to Facebook users across communities in conflict in Jerusalem. Specifically, we assign Facebook users living in Jerusalem to receive person-focused (“human interest”) news content, non-personal news content, or no content at all about out-group members in their city once each day for a period of two weeks. Following this exposure period, we collect attitudinal and behavioral measures to identify whether online news about out-group
members —with or without a “human face”— can shift intergroup attitudes and lead to engagement
with additional out-group news online. We hope our findings will contribute to the prejudice-reduction literature by providing a novel, scalable and replicable approach to intergroup engagement online, and help inform the growing literature on the attitudinal and political consequences of online “echo chambers”.

Authors

• Chagai Weiss, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Alexandra Scacco, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

• Alexandra Arons Siegel, University of Coloardo Boulder