Birds of a feather: investigating the policy-issue formation of Facebook political echo chambers.

Abstract

This research aims to answer the question: “How do echo chambers work to create policy attitudes?” In this process, the study takes from the Issue Publics Hypothesis and Anticipated Agreement theory in assuming that political interests play a vital role in the phenomenon of echo chambers. The study suggests that echo chambers share similar characteristics with semi-public microspheres, arguing that discourses within echo chambers display evidences of issuedeliberation and policy-formation strategies embedded in them. Considering policy-issues as manifestations of political interest and values, this study adopts the Issue-Selling Model as a frame for analyzing the patterns of policy attitude formation of echo chambers in a bottom-up fashion. The results conclude that issue-selling strategies are present within echo chambers but their orientation is not targeted towards an in-group deliberation and the claim that echo chambers being principally homogenous in terms of political stances still proves to be true.