Read it on Reddit: Homogeneity and Ideological Segregation in the Age of Social News

Abstract

This article empirically revisits the idea of ideological segregation and homogeneity in social networks with an exhaustive analysis of the website Reddit.com . Using a computer-assisted analysis on a corpus of multiple billion comments, it studies the relation between the tone of comments and three political topics, immigration, macroeconomics and defense. Looking at the standard deviation of the average tone of users and communities over time on these specific topics, results show an overall trend toward more ideological heterogeneity as a product of new users’ influx, while multiple communities studied and long-term users show a trend toward homogeneity. Results also show that digital heuristics, such as upvotes and downvotes, illustrate a far greater diversity of opinion than a study solely on published comments could let on.