More diverse, more politically varied: How social media, search engines and aggregators shape news repertoires in the United Kingdom



Fletcher, Richard, Kalogeropoulos, Antonis ORCID: 0000-0002-2096-5382 and Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis
(2023) More diverse, more politically varied: How social media, search engines and aggregators shape news repertoires in the United Kingdom. NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY, 25 (8). pp. 2118-2139.

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Abstract

<jats:p> There is still much to learn about how the rise of new, ‘distributed’, forms of news access through search engines, social media and aggregators are shaping people’s news use. We analyse passive web tracking data from the United Kingdom to make a comparison between direct access (primarily determined by self-selection) and distributed access (determined by a combination of self-selection and algorithmic selection). We find that (1) people who use search engines, social media and aggregators for news have more diverse news repertoires. However, (2) social media, search engine and aggregator news use is also associated with repertoires where more partisan outlets feature more prominently. The findings add to the growing evidence challenging the existence of filter bubbles, and highlight alternative ways of characterizing people’s online news use. </jats:p>

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: cross-cutting exposure, diversity, echo chambers, filter bubbles, News audiences, passive tracking
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 17 Nov 2022 12:35
Last Modified: 10 Aug 2023 07:08
DOI: 10.1177/14614448211027393
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3166261