International Communication Association 2018

Following, Mentioning, Sharing: A Search for Filter Bubbles in the Australian Twittersphere

Axel Bruns

• 26 May 2018 – International Communication Association 2018, Prague

Abstract

Claims that social media spaces constitute so-called ‘filter bubbles’ or ‘echo chambers’ (e.g. Pariser 2011) may play to commonplace clichés about online communities, but the empirical evidence that ordinary users experience their everyday social media environments as echo chambers remains limited. Indeed, only 23% of U.S. users on Facebook and 17% on Twitter say that their contacts’ views are similar to their own; 20% have changed their minds about an issue because of interactions on social media (Pew Center 2016).

Building on large-scale, comprehensive data from a project that tracks interactions between nearly 4 million accounts in the Australian Twittersphere, this paper explores in detail the evidence from that country, analysing long-term patterns of following, interaction, and content sharing amongst clusters of accounts – and finding only few bubble tendencies. It thereby moves the present debate beyond a merely anecdotal footing, and offers a more reliable assessment of the ‘filter bubble’ threat.