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Cited by 361

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Algorithmic inference, political interest, and exposure to news and politics on Facebook

Thorson, Kjerstin, Cotter, Kelley, Medeiros, Mel, Pak, Chankyung·2021·Information, Communication & Society
DOI 10.1080/1369118x.2019.1642934
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Abstract

The visibility of news and politics in a Facebook newsfeed depends on the actions of a diverse set of actors: users, their friends, content publishers such as news organizations, advertisers, and algorithms. The focus of this paper is on untangling the role of this last actor from the others. We ask, how does Facebook algorithmically infer what users are interested in, and how do interest inferences shape news exposure? We weave together survey data and interest categorization data from participants’ Facebook accounts to audit the algorithmic interest classification system on Facebook. These data allow us to model the role of algorithmic inference in shaping content exposure. We show that algorithmic ‘sorting out’ of users has consequences for who is exposed to news and politics on Facebook. People who are algorithmically categorized as interested in news or politics are more likely to attract this kind of content into their feeds – above and beyond their self-reported interest in civic content.

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Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. Cinelli M., 2019, arXiv Preprint ArXiv:1903.00699, 1 · arXiv
  2. 10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.003.0009 · doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.003.0009 · Paper page
  3. Guess A., 2018, Political Communication, 36, 1
  4. Juan Y.-F., 2012, U.S. Patent No. 2012/0166532A1
  5. 10.2307/2579133 · doi:10.2307/2579133 · Paper page
  6. Roberts J., 2017, The Economist’s machine-powered social
  7. 10.23943/princeton/9780691154848.001.0001 · doi:10.23943/princeton/9780691154848.001.0001

Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Thorson, K., Cotter, K., Medeiros, M., & Pak, C.
Venue
Information, Communication & Society
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2019-07-27
Volume
24
Issue
2
Pages
183-200
ISSN
  • 1369-118X (ISSN-L)
  • 1468-4462
DOI
10.1080/1369118x.2019.1642934
OpenAlex
W2966100557
Cited by
361
References
48
FWCI
82.99
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Algorithmic inference, political interest, and exposure to news and politics on Facebook. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1080/1369118x.2019.1642934
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Thorson, K., Cotter, K., Medeiros, M., & Pak, C. (2021). Algorithmic inference, political interest, and exposure to news and politics on Facebook. Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2019.1642934

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Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.