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.

[YLHan97]

Hi Professor Watts,

Thank you for sharing this interesting work with us! I have the following questions:

1. What are some of the key methods used to investigate the relationship between brain structure and function at a macroscale level?

2. What are some of the key findings regarding the relationship between brain structure and function at a macroscale level, and how might these findings inform our understanding of brain function and dysfunction?

[yehfanju]

Hi Prof. Watts, Thank you for sharing your work with us! I am curious about the potential sources of bias in the news data used in this paper. Is it possible to identify the differences in biases between the TV and the online settings? Like other peers, I would also want to know how to measure the information consumption of audiences of different ages and lifestyles.

[YutaoHeOVO]

Hi Professor Watts,

Thanks for sharing your research. It is indeed an interesting research and here are a few questions.

First, it seems that more people are partisan-segregated through television comparing with online news audience. But if we want to compare the effect related to the type of media (television versus online), we have to assume that the audience of television and online news share the demographic distribution. With this controlled, we then can proceed into how the difference of online news and television contribute to the difference. Indeed, all these audience are American, they are drawn from the same population. But how can we know that they have the same distribution? If they are not sharing the same distribution, then how can we directly compare? (In this case, what is driving the difference might not be the media but the underlying demographic structure of the audience groups.) Also, it is great that we know how different attributes (race, education, age) of people affect the partisan segregation, but the distribution might also contribute to the conclusion.

Moreover, another question is on the habit of watching TV and browsing through online news feed. For TV audience, their news source is unique - we cannot let the TV play two news channels at the same time. But for internet audience, people are more lean to reading news from the news 'portal' which puts news of different sources together. Indeed, these archetypes will include most of the news consumption, but it cannot cover the full population of US people. And could you explain more on how this sample behavior can account for the overall partisan segregation of US people? (And if most online people generally consume news from portal, online news audience will show less partisanship. And this might make the conclusion of the research trivial?)

And at last, another question is the "compliance" issue. For online users, their average daily minutes are significantly lower than the TV audience. Could the relatively low partisan segregation and low survival rate of partisanship due to the fact that online audience are generally less exposed to those partisan news comparing with TV users? (The reason I think of it as a compliance issue is that it is like imposing a treatment to people, but with low exposure with treatment, it is hard to say that people comply with the treatment.) And I am really curious what will happen if people generally spend more time on online news feed.

Again, thank you so much for sharing your idea. This is really enlightening.

Best, Yutao

[jinyz1220]

Thank you for sharing your thought-provoking work! I am particularly interested in how echo chambers affect moral judgement and ability to empathize with out-group members, especially in the virtual world. In your research, have you found that the effects of consuming biased information without awareness extend beyond political partisanship? I'm curious to know if similar effects might appear in other situations with strong moral convictions. I'm also interested in your thoughts on how recommender systems on social media platforms impact our morality and empathy. Based on your research, how do you think these algorithms affect our ability to empathize with others and make moral judgements?

[sushanz]

Hello Professor Watts,

thank you for sharing! Echo chamber and filter bubble are surrounded us every single day, let alone how much time we stick with social media everyday. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts in your presentation!

[ChongyuFang]

Hi Prof. Watts,

thanks for sharing your work with us! How do homophily, affinity, and demonstrated personal preference contribute to the formation of echo chambers and filter bubbles, and how do these factors interact with algorithms and curation systems to shape online news consumption patterns? Thanks!

[iefis]

Hi Prof Watts, Thank you for sharing your work with us. I'm wondering if the audience of web and TV are inherently different and it is the latent characteristics that differ the two groups of audience and their change of being-partisan segregated. Is there any way to dig deeper into the reasons behind the divergent effect of partisan audience segration via web and TV? Thanks!

[mdvadillo]

Hi Professor Watts, I found your research very interesting. I was wondering if you have studied whether there's an increase in partisan news consumption when a politicized event takes place? Thanks!

[nijingwen]

Hi Prof Watts, Thank you for sharing your work with us.

[Toushirow1]

Hi Professor Watts, Thank you for sharing your research. How can the findings of this study help media organizations and policymakers address the issue of partisan segregation within news audiences? How might the growing audience for partisan news channels on television impact the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans, and what are the potential implications for democracy? Thank you!

[Thiyaghessan]

Hi Dr Watts,

Thank you for your wonderful talk! I'm wondering if you considered the possibility of cascading effects from opinion leaders in the space and whether there are critical points which trigger these effect.

[secorey]

Hi Dr. Watts,

I appreciated how you showed partisan segregation size broken down by demographic, but did you happen to look at partisan segregation trends by region? I'd like to know whether regional differences in segregation generally followed standard partisan trends.

[LuZhang0128]

HI Professor Watts, Thank you for the amazing paper. I wonder if your findings can be applied to a larger scope: that is to say, is there any implication on the non-political related topics? Do the Web and TV play the same role in these cases? Or if their effects are different across various topics?

[Emily-fyeh]

Hi Prof. Watts, Thank you for sharing your work with us! I am curious about the potential sources of bias in the news data used in this paper. Is it possible to identify the differences in biases between the TV and the online settings? Like other peers, I would also want to know how to measure the information consumption of audiences of different ages and lifestyles.

[ZHE-ZHANG-0213]

Hi Prof. Watts, Thank you for sharing your work with us! How does this research contribute to our knowledge of political polarization in contemporary societies?

[beilrz]

Hello Professor,

Thank you for sharing this. I was wondering how was the TV data gather? were there any potential bias/missing information may affect the result? Also, since it is minute level, is it possible to observe how audience's behavior is different during different national news event? for example, are people more partisan when there is a significant breaking political news?

[Peihan12]

Hi professor, I truly appreciate you sharing your research with us, which compares partisanship in TV and web news audiences. It's interesting to see that the results indicate a higher level of partisanship among TV news viewers. However, there could be selection bias in the different audience groups for TV and web news. I'm curious if you would establish a causal (or reverse causal) relationship between partisanship and TV news consumption?

[xinyi030]

Hi Professor,

Thank you for sharing your work with us! With the current polarized political climate in the United States, do you believe that the high levels of partisan segregation observed in television news consumption could hinder constructive political debate and bipartisan collaboration? If so, what steps can be taken by politicians, media organizations, and citizens to promote a more inclusive and diverse news ecosystem? Thanks!

[zyang39]

Thanks for sharing your work. It is interesting to see an analysis on the taste of American audience and what partisan exists. I learned a lot in terms of measurement and method. Thank you