Cross-Ideological Diverse Sharing Is Motivated, Not Sincere

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Communication 1 & Politics, Literature, and the Arts
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Political Communication 1

Abstract

The role of social media platforms as spaces for the exchange of diverse views is a subject of debate. Exposure to a variety of perspectives can foster tolerance towards opposing views, a fundamental principle in democratic societies. Therefore, understanding the nature of sharing on social media and its underlying desires is crucial in determining how information is disseminated on these platforms. However, there is a gap in understanding how politically diverse content is shared and the desires – whether sincere or politically driven – behind sharing ideologically contrasting content. To address this, this study used the Simpson’s Diversity Index to measure the ideological diversity of URLs. This research also categorized the motivations behind sharing as either political or sincere, based on users’ quoted responses about their reasons for sharing URLs, particularly if they aimed to counter-argue. The analysis involved a modified version of Barberá's (2015) Bayesian ideological positions, applied to 80,130 active U.S.-based Twitter (now X) users who tweeted about four topics: the Biden-Putin summit, COVID-19, the #FreeBritney movement, and MLB All-Star Game seasons. The findings indicate that URLs related to politically extreme topics like the Biden-Putin summit and COVID-19 tend to lack diversity in their sharing patterns and that partisans display different sharing patterns by URLs’ diversity. Less politically charged topics are predominantly shared by users with moderate political leanings. Although ideologically consistent sharing was more common, ideologically cross-sharing occurred most frequently in politically extreme topics. However, sincere desires behind cross-sharing were less likely in responses about the Biden-Putin summit compared to COVID-19. These results suggest that ideologically consistent and politically motivated sharing are dominant in online discourse, despite some instances of ideologically cross-sharing driven by sincere desires. This highlights the need for strategies that promote diverse and sincere information exchange on social media platforms.

Author

• Yujin Kim, The University of Texas at Austin