Conquer and Divide in the Digital Age The Role of Facebook in the Occurrence of Echo Chambers in the Hungarian Public Opinion

Absztrakt (kivonat)

From political campaigns to private conversations, social media has changed various interaction mechanisms in our societies. The following paper investigates the current extent of political segregation of Hungarian Facebook communities with regards to the persistence of echo chambers with an additional interest in users’ perception and participation in its antecedent processes. It is deemed to find evidences of an echo chamber effect on Facebook in Hungary and see if such effect further contributes to the social and political polarization of the society. Following the evaluation of currently available relevant theoretical literature and studies, a multi-faceted research is presented, consisting of an experiment using fake Facebook profiles of different political affiliations, followed by an interview with a local expert and then a survey is conducted and analyzed to screen the awareness and perception of individuals on echo chambers. The analysis of the data collected from these three different methodologies is conducted using the framework of curation flows in order to systematically answer the research questions. The results of the study indicate an intentional social media (ab)use by politicians in the form of strategic curation as well as noticeable algorithmic and personal curation forms, contributing to information and opinion bubbles within the sample and the experimental environment, which are, on the other hand, not fully isolated from each other. Further results show a number of negative sentiments of respondents to the current, heavily polarized online and offline spheres in Hungary.