Dear all,

We will have our next LIRa session on Thursday, March 12th. Our speaker is Michael Mäs. You may find the details at the end of this e-mail.

We would like to also bring to your attention the LoC/DIP talk of Jonathan Phillips (Dartmouth) on Wednesday, March 11, 16.00-17.30 at F1.15, as it might be of interest to LIRa members. More details here: http://projects.illc.uva.nl/conceivability/News/article/129/Jonathan-Phillip...

Speaker: Michael Mäs (Department of Sociology and the ICS, University of Groningen)

Date and Time: Thursday, March 12th 2020, 16:30-18:00

Venue: ILLC Seminar Room F1.15, Science Park 107.

Title: Do Filter Bubbles Foster Opinion Polarization?

Abstract. Political events such as the Brexit referendum, the election of Donald Trump, and the success of populists in democratic elections have sparked public and scholarly discussion about the effects of online-communication technology on public debate and collective decision-making. In particular, it has been warned that personalization algorithms installed in online social-networks, and search engines contribute to the formation of so-called “filter bubbles”. These bubbles isolate users from information that challenges their views and expose them to content that is in line with their opinions. It has been warned that this contributes to opinion polarization, a dynamic where competing political camps develop increasingly opposing political views. Here, I summarize research on the relationship between personalization and polarization. While I echo the warning that personalization can affect societal processes, I demonstrate that we leap to conclusions when we propose that personalization is responsible for increased polarization. Based on results from formal modeling work, I argue that we lack crucial empirical insight into the microprocess of social influence and the aggregation of repeated influence to macroprocesses of opinion polarization. I call for more research on communication in online environments, pointing to the potential of approaches that combine rigorous theoretical modeling with the emerging field of computational social-science.

Hope to see you there!

The LIRa team