Article-Level Slant and Polarization of News Consumption on Social Media

82 Pages Posted: 19 Sep 2024 Last revised: 17 Dec 2024

See all articles by Luca Braghieri

Luca Braghieri

Bocconi University - Department of Decision Sciences

Sarah Eichmeyer

Bocconi University

Ro'ee Levy

Tel Aviv University - Eitan Berglas School of Economics

Markus M. Mobius

Microsoft Corporation - Microsoft Research New England; University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - School of Information; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Jacob Steinhardt

University of California, Berkeley

Ruiqi Zhong

University of California, Berkeley

Date Written: August 21, 2024

Abstract

There is widespread concern that the social media ecosystem drives users to engage with like-minded news articles, thereby fostering polarization in news consumption. Methodological limitations in estimating slant at the article level have made evaluating these claims difficult. We use data on the near universe (ca. 1 million) of hard news articles published online by the top 100 U.S. news outlets in 2019, together with recent advances in natural language processing, to obtain a content-based measure of slant at the article level. Our main finding is that the degree of polarization in news consumption on social media is arguably high. Specifically, the mean slant difference between articles consumed by conservative and liberal users on Facebook is 1.5 times the ideological distance between the average New York Times and Foxnews.com article. We also show that: i) the majority (65%) of the variance in slant across articles arises within outlets, rather than across outlets, highlighting the importance of measuring slant at the article rather than the outlet level. ii) Most news produced is centrist, but the tails of the slant distribution are thick and there is substantial variation in slant across news type and topic. iii) Extreme content is much more likely to be shared widely on Facebook than moderate content. iv) There is substantial pro-attitudinal news consumption on Facebook even within the same outlet. v) Polarization in news exposure can account for the majority of polarization in news consumption on Facebook.

Suggested Citation

Braghieri, Luca and Eichmeyer, Sarah and Levy, Ro'ee and Mobius, Markus M. and Mobius, Markus M. and Steinhardt, Jacob and Zhong, Ruiqi, Article-Level Slant and Polarization of News Consumption on Social Media (August 21, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4932600 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4932600

Luca Braghieri

Bocconi University - Department of Decision Sciences ( email )

Via Roentgen 1
Milan, 20136
Italy

Sarah Eichmeyer

Bocconi University ( email )

Via Sarfatti, 25
Milan, 20136
Italy

Ro'ee Levy (Contact Author)

Tel Aviv University - Eitan Berglas School of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 39040
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978
Israel

Markus M. Mobius

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - School of Information ( email )

304 West Hall
550 East University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.markusmobius.org

Microsoft Corporation - Microsoft Research New England ( email )

One Memorial Drive, 12th Floor
Office 12062
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.markusmobius.org

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.markusmobius.org

Jacob Steinhardt

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

Ruiqi Zhong

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
91
Abstract Views
220
Rank
572,897
PlumX Metrics