Academic literature on the topic 'Social Media Homophily'

Social media may limit the exposure to diverse perspectives and favor the formation of groups of like-minded users framing and reinforcing a shared narrative, that is, echo chambers. However, the interaction paradigms among users and feed algorithms greatly vary across social media platforms. This paper explores the key differences between the main social media platforms and how they are likely to influence information spreading and echo chambers’ formation. We perform a comparative analysis of more than 100 million pieces of content concerning several controversial topics (e.g., gun control, vaccination, abortion) from Gab, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. We quantify echo chambers over social media by two main ingredients: 1) homophily in the interaction networks and 2) bias in the information diffusion toward like-minded peers. Our results show that the aggregation of users in homophilic clusters dominate online interactions on Facebook and Twitter. We conclude the paper by directly comparing news consumption on Facebook and Reddit, finding higher segregation on Facebook.

This study adapts and extends signaling theory to examine perceptions of credibility, gender, homophily, and impression management on social media. Specifically, the influence of different signal types – conventional, assessment, and strategic signals. A 2x3 experimental design was conducted to examine the effect of source gender and signal type on receiver perceptions of source and message credibility, homophily, and impressions of the source. Findings confirm that different signal types affect the perception of message and source credibility on social media. Concepts of gender and homophily were not impacted by signal types in this research. With the increase of image-oriented social media such as Instagram, these results demonstrate the sender's role in the person perception process. The role of signaling theory for strategic communication practices is addressed, and future theoretical directions are considered.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw from the diffusion of innovations theory to explore multi-levels of influences (i.e. individuals, networks, news attributes) on news sharing in social media. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was designed and administered to 309 respondents. Structural equation modelling analysis was conducted to examine the three levels of influential factors. These included self-perceptions of opinion leadership and seeking at the individual level, perceived tie strength and homophily at the network level, and finally, perceived news credibility and news preference at the news attribute level. Findings – The results revealed that the influences of self-perceptions of opinion leadership, perceived tie strength in online networks and perceived preference of online news had significant effects on users’ news sharing intention in social media. However, self-perceptions of opinion seeking, homophily, and perceived news credibility were not significant. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies on news sharing in social media that focus on diverse levels of influential factors. In particular, the research suggests the viability of the diffusion of innovations theory to explain this pervasive global phenomenon. Further, the influential factors identified may help to stimulate active participation in social media platforms and ultimately enhance the sustainability of these platforms.

Influencer marketing has been widely utilized in marketing communication. With the growing interest in virtual influencers, this study aims to investigate why social media users would interact with virtual influencers. The research model was developed based on the self-congruity theory. The data were obtained by questionnaires distributed to social media users using judgmental sampling (respondents were above 18 years old and actively used Instagram within the past six months). The questionnaire was posted on social media, and 230 responses were collected and analyzed using a covariance-based structural equation. Influencer-brand fit was found to have a weak direct effect on engagement (γ = 0.158, p < 0.05), but insignificant direct effect on mimicry desire (γ = 0.160, p > 0.05). Value homophily significantly affects both engagement and mimicry desire directly (β = 0.338 and β = 0.622, p < 0.01). Moreover, value homophily was found to fully mediate the virtual influencer-brand fit/mimicry desire relationship (B = 0.546, p < 0.01) and partially mediate the relationship of virtual influencer-brand fit/engagement (B = 0.229, p < 0.01). However, the mediating effect of mimicry desire on the virtual influencer-brand fit/engagement relationship was found to be non-significant (B = 0.065, p > 0.05). This study contributes to influencer marketing by highlighting value homophily as the most significant factor explaining why consumers respond to a virtual influencer when used as a message source in marketing communication.

Theorists have long predicted that like-minded individuals will tend to use social media to self-segregate into enclaves and that this tendency toward homophily will increase over time. Many studies have found moment-in-time evidence of network homophily, but very few have been able to directly measure longitudinal changes in the diversity of social media users’ habits. This is due in part to a lack of appropriate tools and methods for such investigations. This study takes a step toward developing those methods. Drawing on the complete historical record of public retweets posted between January 2011 and August 2013, we propose and justify a partial method of measuring increases or decreases in network homophily. We demonstrate that Twitter network communities that focused on Syria are in general highly fragmented and homophilous; however, only one of the nine detected network communities that persisted over time exhibited a clear increase in homophily.

Opinion polarization on social media raises a lot of concerns today. In this study, the author provides a systematic review of publications about the issues since 2013 to show the achievements in the existing research on the topic, to sort out the relevant knowledge, and to provide some inspirations for future research in this area. This paper finds that opinion polarization on social media is initiated by three patterns of factors: increasing the homophily in discussions, increasing conflict in social media discussions, and facilitating the spread of misinformation. It also summarizes the existing findings on how to detect and measure opinion polarization in social media, and comes up with opportunities for further researches on this topic.

Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of homophily in an online community and the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) consensus on young consumers’ attitudes. Design/methodology/approach This study implemented an experimental research design using a two (low/high homophily) × two (low/high eWOM consensus) mixed factorial design. This study explores young consumers’ changes in brand attitude after encountering negative eWOM. Findings The results indicate that a high consensus of negative eWOM among online community members leads to significant changes in attitude, while a low consensus of negative eWOM does not produce such an effect. Negative eWOM from either high or low homophilous sources produces significant changes in attitude. There are significant attitude changes when a strong consensus of negative eWOM is received from a source with a high level of homophily. Research limitations/implications Service failures in offline service settings lead to the dissemination of negative eWOM on social media. To handle and prevent social media crises, researchers should understand online crises antecedents relating to information characteristics i.e. eWOM consensus and characteristics of online community members to evaluate the crises impact. Brands should monitor tone and dialogue of online community member on social media to remedy and diminish any damage done to their brand image from negative eWOM. Originality/value This study contributes to the application of social network theory by understanding the role of nodes on negative eWOM effect in social media.

This study examines factors associated with the frequency with which users of location-based social networks (LBSNs) "check-in" with their "friends." In addition to a variety of control factors (i.e., sex homophily, race homophily, geographic proximity, length of friendship, and "friendship" type, including non-romantic friend, romantic partner, and family), the central factors of interest were users' background and attitude homophily with, and relational closeness to, their "friends." Results demonstrate that relational closeness and "friendship" type (i.e., romantic partner) were significantly, positively associated with "check-in" frequency.

Le premier chapitre de cette thèse considère une entreprise de médias financée par la publicité qui choisit l'emplacement idéologique de ses nouvelles et cible les consommateurs qui peuvent partager les nouvelles avec leurs abonnés sur les médias sociaux. Après avoir étudié comment l'incitation de chaque consommateur ciblé à partager les nouvelles est façonnée par l'emplacement des nouvelles et la distribution des emplacements idéologiques de ses abonnés, nous étudions la stratégie de l'entreprise pour maximiser l'étendue du partage des nouvelles et constatons que lorsque la moyenne (respectivement, la variance) des localisations idéologiques des suiveurs est une fonction convexe (respectivement concave) de la localisation d'un consommateur ciblé, l'entreprise est susceptible de produire des informations polarisées.Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous considérons une plate-forme monopolistique fournissant un continuum de contenus différenciés verticalement et étudions la conception des contrats de filtrage optimaux lorsque les consommateurs ont des types binaires. Un contrat précise un ensemble de contenus, un prix et si la consommation de contenus fait ou non l'objet d'une publicité. Nous distinguons les allocations de contenu descendantes des allocations ascendantes et permettons le regroupement d'informations d'un ensemble de contenus. Nous constatons que la publicité peut inciter la plate-forme à utiliser une allocation ascendante pour les consommateurs de type faible, tandis que les contrats basés sur un abonnement utilisent toujours des allocations descendantes. La publicité a tendance à inciter la plateforme à augmenter la quantité de contenu consommée en recourant au regroupement d'informations, ce qui augmente le surplus du consommateur. Lorsque la consommation de contenu ne peut pas être subventionnée par un prix négatif, la plateforme peut trouver optimal de proposer un contrat freemium, qui étend (réduit) l'ensemble de consommation, par rapport au cas de la subvention à la consommation, pour des allocations ascendantes (allocations descendantes ) et augmente (réduit) ainsi le surplus du consommateur. Enfin, lorsque les types élevés subissent une nuisance publicitaire plus importante que les types faibles, la plate-forme peut avoir une incitation socialement excessive à montrer de la publicité aux types faibles afin d'extraire la rente d'information des types élevés.Dans le troisième chapitre, nous étudions les réseaux de licences de brevets à l'équilibre qui surgissent entre des entreprises concurrentes symétriques. Nous envisageons des accords de licence qui ne peuvent pas spécifier de redevances mais qui peuvent utiliser des frais fixes et se concentrer sur des réseaux efficaces sur le plan bilatéral. Nous constatons que le réseau complet, qui génère le résultat le plus compétitif, est toujours efficace bilatéralement. Lorsqu'il y a trois firmes symétriques, nous fournissons une caractérisation complète de tous les réseaux de licences bilatéralement efficaces. Lorsque les brevets sont indépendants, nous constatons que le réseau en étoile menant au monopole n'est jamais bilatéralement efficace. En particulier, lorsque la réduction des coûts du brevet est suffisamment importante, il y a un grand contraste : bien qu'un accord de licence multilatéral permette aux entreprises de mettre en œuvre le résultat du monopole, le réseau complet est l'unique réseau bilatéralement efficace. Nous fournissons une condition générale dans laquelle le réseau complet est à la fois le résultat unique efficace sur le plan bilatéral et le résultat unique de maximisation des profits de l'industrie pour un nombre donné d'entreprises. Nos résultats offrent des implications politiques claires en faveur des licences à prix fixe par rapport aux licences à tarif en deux parties, y compris les redevances
The first chapter of this thesis considers an ad-financed media firm that chooses the ideological location of its news and targets consumers who can share the news with their followers on social media. After studying how each targeted consumer's incentive to share the news is shaped by the location of the news and the distribution of her followers’ ideological locations, we study the firm's strategy to maximize the breadth of news sharing and find that when the mean (respectively, the variance) of the followers' ideological locations is a convex (respectively, concave) function of a targeted consumer's location, the firm is likely to produce polarized news.In the second chapter, we consider a monopoly platform providing a continuum of vertically differentiated content and study the design of the optimal screening contracts when consumers have binary types. A contract specifies a set of content, a price and whether or not the content consumption is subject to advertising. We distinguish top-down content allocations from bottom-up allocations and allow for informational bundling of a content set. We find that advertising can induce the platform to use bottom-up allocation for low-type consumers while subscription-based contracts always use top-down allocations. Advertising tends to induce the platform to expand the amount of content consumed by resorting to informational bundling, which increases consumer surplus. When content consumption cannot be subsidized by a negative price, the platform may find it optimal to offer a freemium contract, which expands (reduces) the consumption set, relative to the case of consumption subsidy, for bottom-up allocations (top-down allocations) and thereby increases (reduces) consumer surplus. Finally, when high types experience larger ad nuisance than low types, the platform may have a socially excessive incentive to show advertising to low types in order to extract the information rent of high types.In the third chapter, we study equilibrium patent licensing networks that arise among symmetric competing firms. We consider licensing agreements that cannot specify royalties but can use fixed fees and focus on bilaterally-efficient networks. We find that the complete network, which generates the most competitive outcome is always bilaterally efficient. When there are three symmetric firms, we provide a complete characterization of all bilaterally-efficient licensing networks. When patents are independent, we find that the star network leading to monopoly is never bilaterally efficient. In particular, when the cost reduction from patent is large enough, there is a big contrast: although a multilateral licensing agreement allows the firms to implement the monopoly outcome, the complete network is the unique bilaterally-efficient network. We provide a general condition under which the complete network is both the unique bilaterally-efficient outcome and the unique industry-profit-maximizing outcome for any given number of firms. Our results offer clear-cut policy implications in favor of fixed-fee licensing relative to two-part tariff licensing including royalties

Where do people go to meet friends in the digital age? How do people understand with whom they want to be friends? Drawing from qualitative interviews, participant observation, and content analysis, I examine the website Meetup.com, which allows people to search for common interests on the Internet and meet up with groups of people face-to-face. My study offers new insights into why people turn to the Internet to meet new people; how voluntary organizations determine who they want as their members; and how gender and sexuality shape people's friendships and participation in these groups. This thesis has larger implications for the study of friendship, voluntary organizations, social capital, and Internet studies.
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Na atualidade a comunicação política encontra-se em roturas conceptuais entre as teorias comunicativas passadas e presentes. A forma de comunicar mensagens políticas mudou, assim como a forma de partilhar e pesquisar essa comunicação. Este facto tem exigido à comunidade científica de várias áreas das ciências sociais um forte espírito de adaptação e perceção destes novos fenómenos. Esta dissertação centra-se especificamente na análise de alguns fenómenos da comunicação política online nas eleições presidenciais dos Estados Unidos da América de 2016, concretamente analisamos as echo chamber, polarização política online e os social media enquanto plataformas usadas para discussão política, em suma os social media e o seu papel na esfera pública digital. Através da utilização do método de triangulação conseguimos cruzar dados que nos permitiram retirar conclusões científicas sobre estes fenómenos e como eles se relacionam, no caso concreto, como o modelo de negócio e ferramentas de interação dos social media podem influenciar a polarização política online, e a relação entre a diminuição das echo chambers online e o que isso representa na polarização política online.
Currently, political communication is facing a conceptual crossroad between present and old communication theories. The way political communication is addressed changed, as well as the way to share and search for that information. This fact has gained attention in scientific communities from a wide spectrum of disciplines, in social sciences, with a strong spirit of adaptation and perception of the new phenomena. This dissertation focuses specifically on the analyses of some online political communication phenomena occurred during the 2016 United States of America presidential election, the echo chambers, online political polarization and social media as a platform used for political discussion, in sum social media and his role on digital public sphere. Hence through triangulation method we managed to cross data that allowed us to reach scientific conclusions about these phenomena and how they can relate, in two different ways, how the business model and interaction tools on social media can influence online echo chambers, and the relation between reducing echo chambers and what that represents for online political polarization.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
This research project proposes to try to isolate and measure the influence of “regime fatigue” on gubernatorial elections and senatorial elections in the United States where there is no incumbent running. The research begins with a review of the negativity effect and its potential influence on schema-based impression forming by voters. Applicable literature on the topics of social clustering and homophily is then highlighted as it provides the vehicle through which the negativity effect disseminates across collections of socially-clustered individuals and ultimately contributes to changing tides of public opinion despite the fact that the political party identification can remain relatively fixed in the aggregate.

Practical Feelings develops and applies a theory of emotion practice to the domains of work, leisure, social media, and politics. Chapter 1 theorizes an emotion practice approach by synthesizing symbolic interactionist and poststructural approaches to emotion using their shared lineage of pragmatism. Within this approach, the concepts of emotional capital, habitus, and social location together help us examine emotion as effort, energy, and embodied resource. Chapters 2 through 5 apply an emotion practice approach to the social arenas of work, leisure, social media, and politics. The empirical chapters move from the intimate sphere of nursing to the sphere of public health threats while illustrating the strengths of an emotion practice approach. Audio diaries from nurses capture how they use and conserve emotional resources within hierarchies of social class and race. In examining sports fans, we see how they use and invest in the emotional power of sports symbols, but a hierarchy of racial inequality underlies this economy of emotion that connects communities and corporations. Social media users connect with others during health threats by relying on engrained digital habits of frivolity and humor. Turning to the political sphere, rhetoric from leaders reinforces a view of emotions as irrational, converting their emotional capital of stoicism into political capital during public health threats (Ebola and COVID-19). The final chapter develops the relevance of homophily for connecting emotions with social inequality and theorizes mechanisms for social change.

This research aims to contribute to the understanding of how brand impressions in social networking sites influence brand recall. Further, the relationship between the built-in metrics offered by social networking sites and brand recall are also examined to assess the validity of these metrics as measures of advertising effectiveness. Results indicate a positive relationship between brand recall and self-brand congruence, tie-strength with, trust toward, and perceived popularity of the profile associated with the post, and clicking a link embedded in the post / ad in which the brand appears. On the other hand, there is not a significant difference between the levels of brand involvement, homophily with the profile associated with the post / ad, like-count, and four types of built-in user-interaction options including liking, sharing, posting a comment and tagging among the brands that were successfully retrieved from the memory and those were not.

This final chapter summarizes the core claims and concepts in a sociology of emotion practice, combining concepts from emotion management, interaction ritual, and practice theories. Homophily, as emotional alignment with similar others, is a key aspect of emotion practices and helps to explain how emotions serve to maintain social hierarchies. Emotions are practical, embodied calculations haunted by past practices and predictive of future demands. They clue nurses into the ambiguous and complex demands of the job, help sports fans connect with family and their city, and they can serve to unite disparate groups through digital spaces. By tracing emotion practices in hospitals, sports bars, social media sites, and the political framing of epidemics, we see social actors in more holistic ways. As a result, this book brings the sociology of emotion into closer alignment with the complex practices that make up our social world.

This chapter introduces the reader to an emotion practice approach, including how it challenges misconceptions about emotion and tries to understand emotions in connection with rationality, the body, and collectives. The chapter covers past and current advances in the sociology of emotion and the need for integration of concepts from the subfield with a practice framing. The chapter ends with a description of the structure of the book, including a summary of each of the chapters that follow. These include a chapter focused on theorizing an emotion practice approach by synthesizing symbolic interactionist and poststructural approaches to emotion using their shared lineage of pragmatism. Chapters 2 through 5 apply an emotion practice approach to the social arenas of work, leisure, social media, and politics. The empirical chapters move from the intimate sphere of nursing to the sphere of public health threats while illustrating the strengths of an emotion practice approach. The final chapter further develops the relevance of homophily for connecting emotions with social inequality and theorizes mechanisms for social change.

Developing a theory for the remote audiences of digital networks, we dialogue with social psychology and social theory to describe a novel form of communication that is delivered to everyone and no one at the same time. This is the invisible audience. At the same time as people express themselves to a generalized, invisible audience over social media, the ‘everyone’ of this invisible audience is often narrowed in a very specific way: echo chamber effects. The invisible audience and echo chamber effects both reinforce a solipsistic horizon for every person, and these individual horizons come partially together under echo chamber effects, constituting a multiplicity of separate ‘homophilic assemblages’ characterized by normative and political alignment, one-dimensional communication, and black-and-white thinking. We call this a ‘splitting public sphere’. On the whole, rational debate is curtailed, under the reign of soundbites, memes, and angry venting. The lack of exposure to reasoned disagreement makes people more susceptible to authoritarian rhetoric and propaganda.