Encouraging Reading of Diverse Political Viewpoints with a Browser Widget

author: Sean A. Munson, Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington
published: April 3, 2014,   recorded: July 2013,   views: 1884
Categories

See Also:

Download slides icon Download slides: icwsm2013_munson_browser_widget_01.pdf (9.9 MB)


Help icon Streaming Video Help

Related content

Report a problem or upload files

If you have found a problem with this lecture or would like to send us extra material, articles, exercises, etc., please use our ticket system to describe your request and upload the data.
Enter your e-mail into the 'Cc' field, and we will keep you updated with your request's status.
Lecture popularity: You need to login to cast your vote.
  Delicious Bibliography

Description

The Internet gives individuals more choice in political news and information sources and more tools to filter out disagreeable information. Citing the preference described by selective exposure theory - people prefer information that supports their beliefs and avoid counter-attitudinal information - observers warn that people may use these tools to access only agreeable information and thus live in ideological echo chambers. We report on a field deployment of a browser extension that showed users feedback about the political lean of their weekly and all time reading behaviors. Compared to a control group, showing feedback led to a modest move toward balanced exposure, corresponding to 1-2 visits per week to ideologically opposing sites or 5-10 additional visits per week to centrist sites.

Link this page

Would you like to put a link to this lecture on your homepage?
Go ahead! Copy the HTML snippet !

Write your own review or comment:

make sure you have javascript enabled or clear this field: