Digital Platforms and Echo Chambers

WHAT IS DONE SO FAR

· Formulated a research idea based on the news platforms’ media bias and platform features

· Analyzed over 50 news platforms categorized by media bias in terms of commenting features

· Collected comment data from a sample of selected news platforms using Python Selenium

· Analyzed the collected data using Doc2Vec and dimension reduction techniques, which indicated discursive differences in different platforms’ comments

INFORMS 2021 ABSTRACT 

Social media enables people to learn about and express their reactions to the current news. Additionally, news platforms provide their readers with a digital public space for expressing their opinions. These platforms differ from each other in their news coverage. When combined with the public digital space provided, these platforms enhance echo chambers in which readers with similar ideological perspectives interact. We expect a higher echo chamber effect on news platforms than social media platforms. We select a sample of the news platforms included in AllSides.com, which covers media bias on a wide spectrum of outlets. We collect news and comment data from these platforms to analyze their biases. We collect data from Twitter, Reddit, and Gab to compare these platforms to social media. We use an automated discourse analysis framework in our study.