Research Project Echo chambers revisited – Modelling polarization dynamics on Danish social media

Project Duration: 10/01/2023 - 12/31/2027

Digital platforms are often described as contributing to the isolation of users within closed information environments, which can foster and reinforce the formation of extreme and conspiratorial opinions. The project investigates how these closed digital information environments—digital echo chambers—can emerge, with a particular focus on the polarization of information environments. More specifically, the project examines how citizens, opinion makers, influencers, media, and politicians seek out and share information on digital platforms, as well as the consequences this may have for political opinion formation.

Existing research points to both the emergence and effects of digital echo chambers on political opinion formation, while also critically questioning the concept’s ability to explain how users search for and encounter information on digital platforms. The project combines social media datasets and surveys with theoretical assumptions about human behavior and opinion formation. Through agent-based model simulations, the project generates knowledge about the emergence of digital echo chambers and aims to answer whether they lead to polarization and extreme attitudes.

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Contact
Eva Mayerh?ffer // Project leader // Associate professor // evamay@ruc.dk
Jens Ulrik Hansen, Project leader // Associate professor // jensuh@ruc.dk

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Eva Mayerh?ffer, Project leader, Associate professor
Jens Ulrik Hansen, Project leader, Associate professor
Frederik Henriksen, Postdoc researcher
Alternative Media and Ideological Counterpublics
Alternative Media and Ideological Counterpublics studies the role of hyper-partisan alternative media in the digital public sphere. Hyper-partisan alternative media have become crucial actors in modern societies, and their ideology-driven content presents a critical challenge for journalism, public deliberation and society at large. The project researches the role of left-wing and right-wing alternative online media in the formation of ideological counterpublics vis-à-vis the mainstream public sphere and hence their potential contribution to societal radicalization and the polarization of public discourse.

AlterUse - Digital Alternative News Use in Denmark
The project AlterUse studies how alternative online news sources are used in Denmark. Today, the digital media landscape offers a plethora of different and non-traditional sources of information, including providers of so-called alternative news, which often have as their stated aim to counter so-called 'mainstream' news media.