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Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
Most users do not follow political elites on Twitter; those who do show overwhelming preferences for ideological
Magdalena Wojcieszak1,2, Andreu Casas3, Xudong Yu2
1University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
Abstract:
We offer comprehensive evidence of preferences for ideological congruity when people engage with politicians, pundits, and news organizations on social media. Using 4 years of data (2016-2019) from a random sample of 1.5 million Twitter users, we examine three behaviors studied separately to date: (i) following of in-group versus out-group elites, (ii) sharing in-group versus out-group information (retweeting), and (iii) commenting on the shared information (quote tweeting). We find that the majority of users (60%) do not follow any political elites. Those who do follow in-group elite accounts at much higher rates than out-group accounts (90 versus 10%), share information from in-group elites 13 times more frequently than from out-group elites, and often add negative comments to the shared out-group information. Conservatives are twice as likely as liberals to share in-group versus out-group content. These patterns are robust, emerge across issues and political elites, and exist regardless of users' ideological extremity.
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