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In this study, we explore two factors of selective exposure and their effect on the relation between political sympathies and xenophobic attitudes in Sweden. Previous studies implies that internet and social media-platforms, as well as political interest, are two important factors behind selective news consumption in todays fragmented media landscape. Based on previous studies we hypothesised that; news consumption via social media/internet and political interest effects the relation between political sympathies and xenophobia, and that the effect is positive if the individual sympathies with Sweden democrats and negative if the sympathies lie with the Left party. The result shows that among all Swedish parties the political interested individuals tend to be less xenophobic, while the effect of sympathizing with the Sweden democrats and being political interested shows an increased level of xenophobia. The same result could be observed for Sweden democrats that consumed news via social media and internet, where an increased level of consumption resulted in increased level xenophobic attitudes. The study found no support for the effects of news consumption via social media/internet and political interest on the relation between Left party sympathizers and xenophobic attitudes.

This dissertation extends the media effects literature into the realm of social media. Scholars have long known that partisan news contributes to political polarization, but claim that such effects are often limited to those who tune into politics. Social media, however, can filter political information to those typically uninterested in politics. Because social media feature entertainment and political news in the same space, entertainment-seekers may inadvertently see political news that they normally avoid in traditional media contexts. Through a combination of observational research, survey experiments, and field experiments, I demonstrate that social media facilitate personal influence, drawing new audiences to political news. This increased exposure to partisan media contributes to political polarization, regardless of the ideological congruence between source and receiver, or of news- or entertainment-seeking habits of the audience. But the most important contributions of this dissertation are how it demonstrates the need for scholars to use innovative methods that incorporate personal influence into social media studies, and that it draws scholarly attention to inadvertent media effects for entertainment-seeking audiences. Social media bring political news to new audiences numbering in the millions. Political communication scholars would be remiss not to investigate their influence. / Political Science

Les campagnes de prévention reposent sur le postulat que l’individu prend connaissance des messages qui lui sont proposés. Or, l’un des moyens les plus simples pour résister à la persuasion est de ne pas s’y confronter. A suivre la théorie de la dissonance cognitive (Festinger, 1957), les individus ont tendance à s’exposer aux informations en accord avec leurs opinions et à éviter celles susceptibles de les remettre en cause. Les recherches menées dans ce domaine ne permettent pas de mettre systématiquement en évidence un évitement de l’information inconsistante avec les comportements et/ou les attitudes. Une première explication relève de problèmes méthodologiques dans le paradigme expérimental classiquement utilisé (Brock & Balloun, 1967). Ainsi, utiliser des mesures discrètes (Olson & Zanna,1979) et commencer par mesurer l’exposition avant l’attitude semble permettre la manifestation de l’effet (Lavoie & Thompson, 1972, Olson & Zanna, 1979). Une seconde explicitation tient dans la manière dont est mesurée l’exposition à l’information. Il semble nécessaire que l’individu soit réellement confronté à l’information (ou pense l’être) (Brock & Balloun, 1967). Une troisième explication renvoie à la mesure de l’attitude. Dans le paradigme expérimental traditionnellement utilisé, l’exposition sélective est étudiée au regard d’un comportement et/ou d’une attitude auto-rapportée. Or, d’une part un comportement n’est pas forcément consistant avec une attitude, et, d’autre part, les mesures explicites de l’attitude sont limitées par la désirabilité sociale et les facultés réduites d’introspection. L’objectif majeur de cette thèse consiste en la conception de protocoles expérimentaux permettant de mettre en évidence de l’exposition sélective envers l’information de prévention du tabagisme. Dans cet objectif, un outil de mesure implicite de l’attitude (Single Category Association Test Personalized, SC-IAT-P, Bardin, Perrissol, Py, Launay & Escoubès, en révision) a été spécialement développé. Les résultats obtenus attestent de l’utilité d’une telle mesure dans la mise en évidence du phénomène d’exposition sélective. Ils soulignent également, comme facteur de son émergence, l’engagement des individus dans leur comportement. De plus, concernant le tabagisme, seule la mesure implicite de l’attitude permet de prédire d’une part, un changement de comportement et, d’autre part, une exposition à l’information de prévention. / Preventive campaigns are based on the assumption that individual deals with this type of persuasive messages. However, one of the easiest ways to resist to the persuasion is to avoid these messages. According with the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), individuals tend to expose themselves to information in accordance with their opinions and avoid all those likely to challenge them. The results of various experiments in this area do not permit to identify a systematic avoidance of information inconsistent with the attitudes of individuals. A first explanation is methodological problems in the traditional experimental paradigm used (Brock and Balloun, 1967). Thus, the use of discrete measures (Olson & Zanna, 1979) and to begin the experimentation by measuring exposure before the attitude seems to produce results more in line with the postulates of the theory (Lavoie & Thompson, 1972, Olson & Zanna, 1979). A second explanation could be the measurement of the exposure to information. It seems necessary that the individual should be actually confronted with the information (or thinks he will be) (Brock & Balloun, 1967). A third explanation could be the use of self-reported measures of attitude and/or behavior. However, on the one hand, the behavior of an individual is not necessarily consistent with his attitude, and, secondly, explicit measures of attitude are limited by social desirability as well as reduced capacity of introspection from individuals. The main goal of this thesis is to design an experimental protocol for studying the phenomenon of selective exposure especially toward smoking. To this aim, a test to measure implicit attitudes (Single Category Implicit Association Test Personalized, Bardin, Perrissol, Py, Launay & Escoubès, under review) has been specially developed. The results demonstrate the usefulness of this measure in the highlighting of selective exposure. It also points out the commitment of individuals in their behavior as a factor in its emergence. Furthermore, smoking, only the measure of implicit attitude predicts a behavioral change and an exposure to preventive information.

Filterbubblor är för många fortfarande en relativt okänd process som ändå pågåroavbrutet när vi använder exempelvis sociala medier. Uppsatsen söker att undersökaunga människors vanor på sociala medier, om de känner att de begränsas, deras kunskapi ämnet filterbubblor och dess kopplingar till begränsningar genom personalisering, ochdemokrati. Uppsatsens urvalsgrupp är män och kvinnor mellan 18 och 28 år. Genom 15enskilda intervjuer i kombination med kvalitativ textanalys har vi kommit fram till attanvändarna känner att de begränsas av sociala medier och att det anses vara ett problem.Många användare ansåg också att filterbubblor skulle kunna vara ett hot mot demokrati.Dessutom har vi kommit fram till att kunskapen om filterbubblor bland respondenternaär bristande, om än inte obefintlig. De är däremot överlag mindre intresserade av attändra sina vanor för att motarbeta digital isolering och polarisering, även om deerkänner att förändrade vanor hade gynnat dem. Konsekvenserna av fortsattbegränsning är att vi kommer att glida ifrån varandra än mer. Det kommer att leda tillett mer hätskt politiskt klimat och mer oförståelse för sådant och sådana som ärannorlunda än oss själva. / The making of filter bubbles occurs every time we use social media, although for a lotof people it's still a relatively unknown process. This paper analyzes young people'shabits on social media, if they feel restricted, their knowledge about filter bubbles andtheir connections to restrictions through personalization, and democracy. In this paperwe have sampled men and women between the ages of 18 and 28. After conducting 15individual interviews, we've come to the conclusion that young users feel restricted onsocial media and that they think it could be a problem. Many users considered filterbubbles to be a possible threat to democracy. We've also found that the knowledgeabout filter bubbles among the interviewees is lacking, though not non-existent. Despitethese findings, users are not very interested in changing their habits to combat digitalisolation and polarization, even though many admitted that it would be beneficial tothem. The consequences of continuing restriction is both isolation and polarization. Thiscould lead to a more rancorous political climate and a diminishing tolerance of thingsand people who are different from us.

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Detta kandidatarbete fokuserar på ideologisk polarisering som orsak till den stora mängden falsk information som har spridits den senaste tiden. Jag undersöker hur selektiv exponering och filterbubblor har bidragit till att den ideologiska polariseringen har följt med in på webben, och hur nyhetsfeed har agerat som en grogrund för detta. I ett försök till att minska den ideologiska polariseringen i nyhetsfeed skapade jag en webbapplikation i form av ett nyhetsfeed med nyhetsartiklar som med hjälp av algoritmer låter användaren se utanför sin filterbubbla för att balansera nyhetsfeedet mellan flera olika nyhetskällor. / This bachelor thesis focuses on ideological polarization as cause for the vast amount of false information that have been spread lately. I examine how selective exposure and filter bubbles have contributed to the ideological polarization that followed into the web, and how newsfeed have been acting as a breeding ground for this. In an attempt to reduce the ideological polarization in newsfeed I created a web application in the form of a newsfeed with news articles, that with the help of algorithms let the user see beyond its filter bubble to balance the newsfeed between different news sources.

Den här studien undersöker hur diskussioner på ekokammare ser ut i sociala medier. Mer specifikt undersöks kommentarsfälten i två olika länkar från den sociala länkaggregatorn Reddit och underforumet /r/Politics. Undersökningen görs i syfte att se hur diskussioner tar form på Reddit för att ge en klarare bild av ekokammare som fenomen på internet. Studiens teoretiska grund ligger i teorierna om selektiv exponering och partisk assimilering, samt i en teoretisering av hur grupper formas på de sociala medierna Twitter och Reddit. Studien använder sig av både en kvantitativ innehållsanalys och en kvalitativ textanalys, vilka främst grundar sig i argumentationsanalysen. Innehållsanalysen används först för att jämföra /r/Politics användares ställningstagande till de länkar som de kommenterar på och sedan för att möjliggöra en korrelationsanalys av arguments styrka och dess användargivna poäng på Reddit. Textanalysen görs med hjälp av begrepp från argumentationsanalysen och används för att sätta in studiens material i fem olika teman. Det mest framträdande temat får namnet Kommentarer av papegojor och beskriver kommentarer som konstrueras likadant som tidigare kommentarer utan försök till att föra något nytt till diskussionen. Överlag visar studiens resultat att responsen ser likadan ut för båda länkarna och att en stor majoritet av kommentarerna är på samma sida i argumentet. Resultatet visar också att argumentens styrka är oberoende av om en kommentar får en positiv respons eller inte. / This study explores how discussions in echo chambers take form on social media. More specifically, the study explores the comment section of two different links on the social news-aggregator website Reddit and the sub-forum /r/Politics. The purpose of the aforementioned exploration is to give a clearer picture of echo chambers as a phenomena on the Internet. The study’s theoretical background is based on selective exposure and biased assimilation theory, as well as a theorization of how groups form on Twitter and Reddit. The study uses a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis, which are both based on argumentation theory. The content analysis is first used to compare the viewpoint of /r/Politics users with the subject of the links they comment on, and then to make a correlation analysis of the strength of arguments and the arguments’ user-given points on Reddit. Last a qualitative text analysis is done using concepts from argumentation theory, which allows for the observation of five different themes. The most prominent of these themes was given the name Comments by parrots and describes comments that are constructed in a similar fashion to older comments, without an attempt to bring something new to the discussion.  Overall, the study’s result shows that the response to the two links is similar, and that both have an overwhelming majority of comments supporting one side. The result also shows that a strong argument does not necessarily mean that the comment will get a positive response.

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