Shifting echo chambers in US climate policy networks
Open accessAbstract
Although substantial attention has focused on efforts by the new Administration to block environmental policies, climate politics have been contentious in the US since well before the election of Donald Trump. In this paper, we extend previous work on empirical examinations of echo chambers in US climate politics using new data collected on the federal climate policy network in summer 2016. We test for the similarity and differences at two points in time in homophily and echo chambers using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) to compare new findings from 2016 to previous work on data from 2010. We show that echo chambers continue to play a significant role in the network of information exchange among policy elites working on the issue of climate change. In contrast to previous findings where echo chambers centered on a binding international commitment to emission reductions, we find that the pre-existing echo chambers have almost completely disappeared and new structures have formed around one of the main components of the Obama Administration's national climate policy: the Clean Power Plan. These results provide empirical evidence that science communication and policymaking at the elite level shift in relation to the policy instruments under consideration.
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There is substantial evidence that segregated online communities emerge around politically contentious topics.
“Although recent evidence suggests that general information consumption on social media might not be an echo-chamber for many users (21, 22), there is nevertheless substantial evidence supporting the argument that segregated online communities emerge around politically contentious topics (23, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 20).”
From Troll and divide: the language of online polarization (2022) · cites this paper as [25]
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Flagged first, then by citations
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Troll and divide: the language of online polarization
Simchon, A., Brady, W. J., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2022) · PNAS Nexus · doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac019 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
- Authors
- Jasny, L., Dewey, A. M., Robertson, A. G., Yagatich, W., Dubin, A. H., Waggle, J. M., & Fisher, D. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Exeter (GB)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- University of Dayton (US)
- George Mason University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Fisher, Dana R.
- ORCID
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2018-09-14
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e0203463
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6138410
- OpenAlex
- W2890429857
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 11.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2022-09-01)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (G-16-1609-151514-CLS)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policy Transfer and Learning
- Keywords
- echo chambers, homophily, policy elites, information sharing, Clean Power Plan, climate policy, science communication, Obama administration climate policy, network structure change
- MeSH terms
- Models, Theoretical, Policy Making, United States, Government Regulation, Climate Change
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