Open media or echo chamber: the use of links in audience discussions on the Facebook Pages of partisan news organizations

Abstract

This study evaluates the use of hyperlinks in audience discussions on the Facebook Pages of two partisan cable news organizations: the liberal-leaning Rachel Maddow Show and the conservative O'Reilly Factor, to investigate to what extent linking might intensify partisan political discussion or infuse a variety of perspectives into online communication. The results suggest that these Facebook audiences show a preference for a small group of information resources; furthermore, the two audiences shared an even smaller number of information resources in common. The findings support previous research that suggests a relatively small number of information resources receive most of the news audience traffic, and provide some support for other studies that indicate that partisan political discussions on social media are segregated by political orientation.

Keywords:

• social media
• Facebook
• political communication
• journalism
• filter bubble
• hypertext
• selective exposure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Susan Jacobson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Florida International University. [email: [email protected]]

Eunyoung Myung  is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, School of Journalism and Mass Communication. [email: [email protected]]

Steven L. Johnson  is an Associate Professor of Commerce at the University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce. [email: [email protected]]