Integrated or Segregated? User Behavior Change after Cross-Party Interactions on Reddit

Abstract

It has been a widely shared concern that social media reinforces echo chambers of like-minded users and exacerbate political polarization. While fostering interactions across party lines is recognized as an important strategy to break echo chambers, there is a lack of empirical evidence on whether users will actually become more integrated or instead more segregated following such interactions on real social media platforms. We fill this gap by inspecting how users change their community engagement after receiving a cross-party reply in the U.S. politics discussion on Reddit. More specifically, we investigate if they increase their activity in communities of the opposing party, or in communities of their own party. We find that receiving a cross-party reply to a comment in a non-partisan discussion space is not significantly associated with increased out-party subreddit activity, unless the comment itself is already a reply to another comment. Meanwhile, receiving a cross-party reply is significantly associated with increased in-party subreddit activity, but the effect is comparable to that of receiving a same-party reply. Our results reveal a highly conditional depolarization effect following cross-party interactions in spurring activity in out-party communities, which is likely part of a more general dynamic of feedback-boosted engagement.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Average user activity in out-party subreddits for every two-day interval, from 30 days before to 30 days after receiving the first reply (resp. posting the first comment) in r/news in the observation period, for users who received replies (resp. users who received no replies).
• Figure 2: Coefficients (i.e., log odds ratio) of the regression model for predicting A) increased out-party subreddit activity, and B) increased in-party subreddit activity. Each row corresponds to an independent variable. Each point on the row corresponds to the estimated coefficient of the independent variable in one year's model, and the bar underneath indicates the 95% confidence interval of the estimate. A solid circle with a solid line indicates that the independent variable has a significant correlation with the dependent variable in the corresponding year, while a hollow circle with a dotted line indicates a non-significant one. A coefficient above 0 indicates that the independent variable has a positive correlation with the dependent variable, while a coefficient below 0 indicates a negative one.
• Figure 3: Coefficients (i.e., log odds ratio) of the difference-in-effects regression model for predicting A) increased out-party subreddit activity, and B) increased in-party subreddit activity, where the coefficient of a Cross-Party Interaction variable indicates the difference between the effect of a cross-party interaction and that of an interaction (either cross-party or same-party). Each row corresponds to an independent variable. Each point on the row corresponds to the estimated coefficient of the independent variable in one year's model, and the bar underneath indicates the 95% confidence interval of the estimate. A solid circle with a solid line indicates that the independent variable has a significant correlation with the dependent variable in the corresponding year, while a hollow circle with a dotted line indicates a non-significant one. A coefficient above 0 indicates that the independent variable has a positive correlation with the dependent variable, while a coefficient below 0 indicates a negative one.
• Figure 4: Coefficients (i.e., log odds ratio) of the A) absolute-effect regression model, and B) difference-in-effects regression model for predicting increased ratio of out-party subreddit activity. Each row corresponds to an independent variable. Each point on the row corresponds to the estimated coefficient of the independent variable in one year's model, and the bar underneath indicates the 95% confidence interval of the estimate. A solid circle with a solid line indicates that the independent variable has a significant correlation with the dependent variable in the corresponding year, while a hollow circle with a dotted line indicates a non-significant one. A coefficient above 0 indicates that the independent variable has a positive correlation with the dependent variable, while a coefficient below 0 indicates a negative one.