@inproceedings{3d281087aa7442aa83110e3d557fb4b6,
title = "Social media is polarized, social media is polarized: Towards a new design agenda for mitigating polarization",
abstract = "Social media platforms have often been described as online spaces supporting political discourse. However, online discussions are often polarized; people tend to commune with those who are ideologically similar to them. The HCI response to this phenomenon has been to purposefully expose people to diverse viewpoints. This common design agenda is supported through analysis of link sharing, yet little attention has been paid to how users discuss these links. Therefore, the common design agenda may not mitigate polarization. We study the emergent discourse in 10 Finnish migration-related Face-book groups and examine how the same links are shared and discussed across anti- and pro-migration camps. Qualitative analysis of the posts and comments revealed that shared media links do not bridge polarized groups with regard to worldviews and opinions. We then demonstrate alternative design opportunities to resolve this issue and begin to develop a new design agenda to mitigate polarization.",
keywords = "Echo chambers, Filter bubble, Polarization, Selective exposure",
author = "Matti Nelimarkka and Laaksonen, {Salla Maaria} and Bryan Semaan",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).; 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2018 ; Conference date: 09-06-2018 Through 13-06-2018",
year = "2018",
month = jun,
day = "8",
doi = "10.1145/3196709.3196764",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9781450351980",
series = "DIS 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference",
publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc",
pages = "957--970",
booktitle = "DIS 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference",
}