04/20/2023: Duncan Watts

[GabeNicholson]

Comment below with a well-developed question or comment about the reading for this week's workshop.

If you would really like to ask your question in person, please place two exclamation points before your question to signal that you really want to ask it.

Please post your question by Tuesday of the coming week, at 11:59 PM. We will also ask you all to upvote questions that you think were particularly good. There may be prizes for top question-askers.

[Dededon]

Hi Professor Watts, Thank you so much for offering this fantastic talk! I'm particularly interested in Hosseinmardi and your paper of intake of radical content on YouTube. Social media research on YouTube is a brand new direction that are yet to be discovered by the scholarship, and I very appreciate the paper's idea of separating the on-and-off platform content consumption. Are there replicable methodolgies to record, measure, and evaluate the off-platform content consumption of any selected user group? That would be definitely helpful for future researches!

[JoeHelbing]

Hello Professor Watts,

Interesting the online "echo-chamber" phenomenon was less than the television, but theoretically makes sense given the smaller selection and greater ability to self select into those. Was there any efforts by tech companies creating the feeds to reduce echo-chamber effect potentially, aka is this a choice by those creating the algorithms to reduce that effect?

[borlasekn]

Hi Prof. Watts,

Thanks for sharing your expertise with us. I was wondering whether you think the same sort of "echo chamber" politics apply on platforms that are largely used for what people would consider "non-political" issues, such as on TikTok. In theory, people consume certain content and the algorithms build their explore pages based on the content they like. Now, assume an individual largely watches comedy videos. I believe that their are still echo chambers within these algorithms, and people will likely be swayed by the creators whose content they assume. For example, say an individual watches cooking videos and in particular certain people's content. If the content creator happened to be liberal, is that individual, by proxy, more likely to be liberal? How would you study these sorts of indirect and/or cascading echo chamber effects? Thanks!

[taizeyu]

Hi Prof. Watts, Thanks for your speech. Have the trends identified in this study changed in recent years? Because we all know that the form of society will change with technological and social progress. Can this model be applied universally? Thanks

[hsinkengling]

Dear Prof. Watts,

This is a fascinating paper! I wonder whether the difference in online versus tv news consumption could be attributed to the purpose people use these sources for (and whether we can control for that). For example, people might use online news more as a source of information (faster, more diverse) while tv is used more and more for political cheerleading (driven by political brand personalities). This would imply that not all consumption is equal: selective focus/concentration when consuming certain news sites might be more important than bland information gathering.

In addition to measuring polarization through consumption, how do these trends compare with data on public opinion, where polarization is more obvious? Are patterns of polarization driven mostly by hardline supporters?

[awaidyasin]

Thanks for sharing your work, Professor! You show that biased news consumption is not persistent, i.e., people consuming left- or right-winged news are less likely to consume that in the following period. I guess what's also important is not just the political inclination of news but also who is delivering it. For instance, some people might simply like Tucker Carlson and want to hear him deliver news. Does your empirical evaluation include some kind of person fixed-effects?

[XTang685]

Hi Prof. Watts, You analyze the news consumption of web and TV audiences to understand how partisanship influences media choices. The study finds that while web audiences consume more partisan news than TV audiences, both groups tend to favor news sources that align with their political beliefs. The study also reveals that the online media landscape is more fragmented than the TV landscape, with fewer dominant news sources. My question is, how can we address the issue of algorithmic bias in online news consumption, considering the fact that the personalization of news feeds often reinforces users' existing political beliefs and contributes to the formation of filter bubbles, leading to a lack of exposure to diverse viewpoints and potential polarization?

[JerryCG]

Dear Prof. Watts,

One thing I am concerned with is it seems hard to purely classify a person as TV viewer or online viewer. I think it might be for most people they are hybrid viewer of both TV and online channels. Is it possible that someone is partisan-segregated on TV but not so online? or the other way round? And I think the TV program resources are much limited than online resources. Thus could this phenomenon just be driven by the diversity of resources so online will have less segregation?

Best, Jerry Cheng

[Hongkai040]

Hi Prof. Watts, thank you for sharing your work! My question is what is the future of democracy in US in a digital age, like a decade or two decades from now? It's looks like a big question, but the rationale behind the question is based the findings of your papers: Your papers argues that TV, a shrinking market, contribute the most political segregation, while the situations on social platforms are more moderate. We may safely assume that the younger generations are shifting from medias like TV to Internet streaming platforms and social medias. If this is the case, does that mean that the society is not becoming more polarized in the future when the generation watching TV fade away from the stage?

[ShiyangLai]

Dear Prof. Watts,

Thank you for sharing your research on TV-driven partisan audience segregation. Your descriptive analysis is very interesting, and it is surprising to see such a fast drop in partisan segregation for both TV and Web news audiences. While I understand that your data is not suitable for identifying the drivers of desegregation, I am curious about your hypothesis regarding this phenomenon.

I am also a bit confused about one thing: how do you define TV news audience and Web news audience? It's common to see people consuming news in a mixed way, so can we really say that an individual is partisan-segregated based solely on their content selection behavior on one platform? For example, what if someone chooses to watch specific types of news on TV but looks at very different content online? This situation is not uncommon. Personally, I sometimes watch TV with my family and choose something that they are interested in, but when I'm online alone, I may look at something that only interests me. I believe many young people do the same thing. So, can we really draw a conclusion about someone's level of partisan segregation based solely on their content selection behavior on one platform?

[pranathiiyer]

Thank you so much Professor Watts for sharing your work with us! How do you anticipate that this will change with age as younger generations get older? Given that your population varies with age, will we see trends more within the online space as opposed to television as younger generations get older and newer generations consume more and more news online?

[zoeyjiao1104]

Professor Watts,

Thank you so much for sharing your work.

Considering the growing trend of partisan news consumption and its potential impact on political attitudes and behaviors, what measures can be taken to mitigate the potential negative effects of such news consumption on individuals and society as a whole?

[erweinstein]

Hi Professor Watts,

Thanks for giving this talk to our workshop!

A key point you and you co-authors make is that "...to the extent that Americans do consume news, it is overwhelmingly from television, which accounts for roughly five times as much as news consumption as online". The relevance of this fact to much research on media consumption patterns, including the papers you note which overreact in their attempt to "debunk" the concerns about echo chambers, seems so obvious, yet it was not quite as obvious as it seemed, since it was being ignored. Overall, your point about the relative impact and importance of TV compared to online news reminds me of Hortaçsu and Syverson's 2015 work showing that for all of the emphasis on e-commerce, warehouse clubs like Sam's Club and Costco were at least 50% more impactful in terms of how much consumers buy from each type of store (at least in the 2010s; furthermore, their work also parallels yours in that a person is extremely likely to use both of, say Amazon and Costco, but not necessarily or likely in equal proportion, and that proportion matters). Or the fact that less than 40% of Americans have a 4-year college degree (although this number is higher than it used to be), while so much of "the discourse" (hyper-focused as it is on free speech/platforming questions, campus politics, and related matters) presupposes that attending a 4-year college is a universal shared experience for all who are reading/listening/watching. I hope that, like the work of Gelman et. al. that corrected some very-widespread (and commonly repeated by the media) misunderstandings about American partisan voting behavior, the work that you and your colleagues have done here rapidly becomes well-known and the new baseline for work on this topic.

[Yuxin-Ji]

Dear Prof. Watts,

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us! I really appreciate your research comparing the partisans in TV and web news. While the results show that there is a larger partisan in TV news audience, there might be selection bias among different audience groups of TV and web news. I wonder whether you would conclude a causal (or reverse causal) relationship between partisan and TV news?

[helyap]

Hi Professor Watts,

These are interesting findings and I'm anticipating the direction of future research in polarization as well as the broader realm of media influence. While the study focuses on individual level behavior, do you have any thoughts about potential differences in social network effects between online social media and TV consumption? TV consumption feels more social than online usage, especially in families (if it is still the case that most families just have one television set). Although information might spread quicker and more easily online, will information consumed alongside strong ties–especially among known individuals they can have repeated communication with–be perceived to have greater value and validity? How does this in turn affect the individuals' decisions and beliefs (I'm particular curious about both their own political beliefs and beliefs about others with differing opinions).

[xin2006]

Hi Prof. Watts,thanks for sharing your work with us. For the paper, could you please explain the categorizing of news and the bias in detail, regarding the intersection part? Given some news sources may have a mix of liberal and conservative viewpoints, making their categorization difficult.

[fiofiofiona]

Hi Prof. Watts, thank you for sharing your work with us. I really enjoyed reading the study that compares the partisans between TV and online news audiences. I am curious, though it may be hard to examine, that whether the TV audiences consist of mainly older adults; and whether those elders who are used to accessing online news may already have exposure to the left ideology, which may increase the likelihood of consuming information from more than one source? If certain group differences like the above do exist, how would that influence the conclusion of this study?

[zbchen0129]

Hi Prof. Watts, thanks for sharing your work with us. I have two questions: 1. How do echo chambers form, and what role do algorithmic filters play in reinforcing them? 2. Can you provide examples of ways in which social media platforms have been accused of undermining democracy, and how can data science help to evaluate these claims?

[shaangao]

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us! What might be the reasons leading to the observed different degrees of partisanship in TV vs online viewers? Would it be possible that the inflexibility of TV shows (compared to online browsing) itself leads to more concentrated viewing records? What are some of the things that you think the findings of the current study can inform us about the root of political polarization and possible ways to eliminate it?

[lguo7]

Hi Dr. Watts, Thank you for sharing your research. You mentioned in your paper that TV news audiences are shrinking and that Youtube is an important growing source of partisan bias news. I'm wondering if you've considered looking at partisan bias in Tik Tok? Because the explosive popularity of short videos in recent years has led to more people posting news on short video platforms, and Tik Tok uses an algorithm to push news that matches users' preferences.

[kuitaiw]

Dear Prof Watts, Thank you for talking! I wonder if the Echo chamber is influenced to a certain extent by media with different positions? I think at present we can only find their correlation but not their causation. So I would like to ask you what method you can use to identify this causal relationship?

[koichionogi]

Thank you so much, Professor Watts!!! The message is from an individual who is thanking you for sharing their research on TV-driven partisan audience segregation. They find the descriptive analysis interesting and surprising, especially the fast drop in partisan segregation for both TV and Web news audiences. However, they are curious about the hypothesis behind this phenomenon and also a bit confused about the definition of TV news audience and Web news audience. They question whether an individual's content selection behavior on one platform is sufficient to conclude their level of partisan segregation, considering that many people consume news in a mixed way. They give an example of how they may watch TV with their family and choose something that interests them but may look at something different when online alone, which is not uncommon among young people. Based on your own experience, do you think the phenomenon of partisan segregation is decreasing or increasing over time?

[hazelchc]

Hi Prof. Watts,

Thank you for sharing this interesting piece of work with us! I’m curious about the policy implications of the findings for democracy, and what measures can be taken to address the problem of partisan audience segregation in the news?

[yhchou0904]

Dear Prof. Watts, Thank you for sharing your idea with us! The research suggests the existence of partisan news diets on both TV and online channel. As described in the article, the options of TV channels are relatively limited compared to those of online channels, making their choice the default option when they need to acquire more information from the news. Given this difference, is there a way to adjust this inertia-like decision-making process so that we can compare these two channels in a more balanced way?

[yujing-syj]

Hi Prof. Watts, Thank you for presenting this fascinating study to us! I'm interested in knowing your predictions for the future direction of partisanship amid all the divisions. Are there any policy interventions we can implement to alleviate the current trend?

[y8script]

Hello Prof. Watts,

Thank you for sharing your work! I am still very curious about the finding that fake news and partisan news feeds only constitute a small percentage of Internet traffic. Do you think the proportion of partisan-segregated audiences on the web will change when looking at an earlier time when web news is still in its early stages? Is it possible that web audiences learn to identify fake news better and stop consuming fake information after they get more experience on the Internet?

[LynetteDang]

Hi Prof. Watts, thank you so much for sharing your work with us. I am wondering what are the applications of the policy interventions proposed in your paper. What do you think about misinformation and how should we best approach and study it?

[HongzhangXie]

Dear Prof. Watts,

Thanks for sharing the interesting paper. I am impressed by the data and there only 17% and 4% of Americans are partisan-segregated on television and online. I'm curious why there is such a significant difference between television and online. Can we attribute this to the demographic difference or the different patterns of access to the information? For example, television gives the same message to all viewers, and we can only choose whether to watch it or not. Online, we will receive customized information, and we can independently click on links to information of interest.

[yutaili]

Hi Professor Watts,

Thanks for sharing your work with us. My question is that how do the differences in the consumption of politically polarized content between web and TV audiences affect individuals' political beliefs and behavior over time? Or is it in the opposite way that TV audiences tend to watch politically polarized content because they are partisan segregated? Thanks.

[sdbaier]

Professor Watts,

You mention that "[...] more news consumption occurs through ordinary television (TV)—not only cable and broadcast networks but also local news—than online (27, 28)." and that you "[...] have expanded the scope of partisan audience segregation by moving beyond discussions of exclusively online echo chambers and filter bubbles to incorporate the comparatively larger TV news audience."

Perhaps a naïve question, but where do you see print media in the equation? Have physical newspapers been largely absent from the debate due to data availability, or do they not squarely fit into the discourse on echo chambers and partisan audience segregation?

[mintaow]

Hi Prof. Watts,

The article mentions that the researchers found evidence of increased partisan language use in the speeches of politicians over time. I am curious to know how might these findings inform our understanding of the polarization of American politics, and what are potential solutions for mitigating the effects of partisan on public segmentation. Thanks!

[zihua-uc]

Hi Prof. Watts,

It is interesting to find out that partisan segregation occurs more through television than online platforms. Given that most of this effect comes from older ages, would you see this issue solving itself in the future? Young people are consuming less television and turning to online content instead, so it would be reasonable to predict that in a few decades, this partisan segregation of media consumption would be less of a problem.

[tangn121]

Hello Prof. Watts, thank you for sharing your work with us! I am curious to know whether the formation of the echo chamber differs between television and online platforms due to variations in consumption. Thank you!

[linhui1020]

Professor Watts, thanks for your talk! Your findings suggest the language features of politicians demonstrate a partisan orientation over time. Will you suggest what causes the linguistic style? and how likely such features and trends would last over time? are they just in the public domains or in the documents of conference, they still show similar partisian?

[javad-e]

Thank you for presenting your work at our workshop, Prof. Watts! The paper mentions “cord cutting”, i.e. people choosing to watch TV content online, as a potential reason for some of the observations. The choice of watching content online or on TV is perhaps not uncorrelated to some other variables we are interested in, including political inclinations and education. I was wondering if you think this could introduce any biases in the analysis?

[bningdling]

Hi Prof. Watts, thank you for sharing your work with us! Do you think investigating the scale of political information dissemination occurring on YouTube, an important growing source for partisan-skewed news could be a possible idea for future research to explore?

[yuzhouw313]

Hello Professor Watts, Thank you for sharing your research on partisan news diet on television and online. It is interesting, but not counter-intuitive, to see that the "echo chamber effect" on partisanship manifests more saliently via online information diffusion compared to that via television. Have you considered the overlapping effect of online news and television news and the differentiation between the two media based on their target audience and overall popularity?

[zhiqianc]

Hi professor,

Thanks for sharing your work with us. My questions are: can you explain the methods used in the study and how they contributed to the results? Additionally, what are the implications of the study for our understanding of brain function and how might it impact future research in the field of neuroscience?

[JunoWuu]

Hi Professor Watts,

Thank you for sharing your work. I wonder how your findings about the policy interventions can be applied to real life use? What are the possible situations in real life that affect the effectiveness of the interventions?

[zhiyun0707]

Hi Professor Watts, thank you for sharing your research with us! As you mainly discussed how partisan news impact internet users and viewers and the relationship of their political polarizations, I wonder do you think the media platform could provide the audience with impartial political issues, or all the news are more or less biased?

[jiehanL]

Hi Prof. Watts, thank you for sharing your work! One question I have is that, what are some of the potential sources of bias in the data used to measure partisan news diets in Web and TV audiences, and how did the you attempt to address these biases in their analysis?

[ValAlvernUChic]

Hello Professor,

Thank you for your work. I was especially interested in your paper on fake news and was thinking about its connections with democracy and democratic backsliding. Many in the Philippines cite misinformation and fake news regarding Ferdinand Marcos's legacy for his son's eventual election. In many ways, voting in the son of one of the country's most infamous dictators could either be seen as a rejection of democratic ideals or political apathy, yet the fake news hypothesis makes his election seem like a result of forced amnesia. I was wondering where we should begin negotiating this and how different polities might change your methodology?

[lbitsiko]

Hi Prof. Watts, Many thanks for presenting your work in our workshop. What role do you believe social media algorithms play in reinforcing partisan segregation in news consumption?

[AlexPrizzy]

Thank you for presenting this to our work shop, Prof Watts! My question is whether the internet is killing network television news? With how ubiquitous televised news is in America, is the internet augmenting news consumption? Considering that internet news allows for highly personalized content delivery and preferred television news networks vary by region. Thus, only watching televised news can bias a whole group of people on the same issue while personalized internet news allows for greater diversity of opinions within a group as it caters to individual users preferences. In this sense, can internet news reduce bias and polarization?

[BaotongZh]

Dear Professor Watts,

Thank you for sharing your work with us. I was wondering what your expectations are regarding future changes in partisan news consumption regarding the consumption channels.

[Coco-Jiachen-Yu]

Hello Professor Watts,

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us! This is such an interesting topic. I look forward to your presentation tomorrow. I found it interesting about your finding of temporal differences between TV news and online news. I wonder whether your results are associated with characteristics of age groups or other demographics, as I would imagine the audience base might differ significantly between these two news sources.

[shenyc16]

Hi Prof Watts,

Thank you for sharing this interesting work with us. The framework measure the extent of partisan segregation within the news audience is very novel, taking into account temporal dynamics underlying news consumption. The discussion over potential solutions to mitigate the risks posed by partisan news diets in the media ecosystem is inspring. Looking forward to your lecture!

[yjhuang99]

Thanks for sharing your amazing work with us, Prof. Watts! Your work is very relevant to our daily life, and it's very interesting that partisan news channels' audiences are growing even when the TV news audience is shrinking. If TV is really the channel, would you say the policy implication would be a negative shock/ an alarm to the TV market?

[cgyhumble0612]

Hi professor, thank you for sharing this excellent work. I have a question. What are the limitations of current models used in network neuroscience research to understand the relationship between structural connectivity and functional connectivity? Thank you so much

[edelahayeUChicago]

Hi Professor Watts,

I was really interested to read your paper on the consumption of YouTube content and how you found little evidence that the algorithm was behind it as a force. More generally do you think that if future evidence emerged that the algorithm was an issue in radicalisation, do you think your kind of analysis could be used to inform regulations that govern the kinds of algorithms in use across social media? Do you think such regulation is already necessary maybe?