How Do Partisans Consume News on Social Media? A Comparison of Self-Reports With Digital Trace Measures Among Twitter Users

Abstract

There are growing concerns that social media exacerbates the selective exposure of audience members to content that supports their political views. However, despite the hype, the existing literature does not fully address the extent to which social media users selectively consume like-minded news stories, in part due to different methodologies. In an attempt to move toward a common framework, this study examined the partisan selective exposure of a representative sample of Twitter users by combining survey data with digital trace data. Specifically, the study linked survey responses ( n = 558) from Twitter users with their media following and exposure to news via their friends. The study found that selectivity bias was present in all types of data, including self-reported media consumption (survey), media following (Twitter), and indirect exposure to media (Twitter). However, the study found some differences between self-reports and digital measures such that the overlaps in media diets between partisan groups were much larger based on the digital trace data than the self-reported data. In addition, the study observed an asymmetric pattern of selective exposure between conservatives and liberals in the digital trace data, but not in the self-reported data. The implications of these findings are discussed with reference to the contemporary news environment, hostile media effects, and normative assumptions of selective exposure.