Expert voices in echo chambers: Effects of source expertise indicators on exposure to diverse opinions

Q. Vera Liao, Wai Tat Fu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We studied how a source expertise indicator impacted users' information seeking behavior when using a system aggregating diverse opinions, and how it interacted with a source position indicator to shape users' selectivity of information. We found that, for both attitude consistent and inconsistent information, the expertise indicator increased the selection of sources indicated to have high expertise and decreased that of low expertise. Moreover, when both source expertise and position indicators were present, users' selective exposure tendency, i.e., preferential selection of attitude consistent sources over inconsistent ones, decreased among expert sources. Moreover, we found that the expertise indicator could benefit encouraging common ground seeking with different others by increasing the agreement with, and perceived expertise of inconsistent sources indicated to be experts. Design implications for moderating selective exposure by highlighting the utility of dissonant information were discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCHI 2014
Subtitle of host publicationOne of a CHInd - Conference Proceedings, 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages2745-2754
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781450324731
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2014 - Toronto, ON, Canada
Duration: Apr 26 2014May 1 2014

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Other

Other32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2014
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityToronto, ON
Period4/26/145/1/14

Keywords

  • Diversity Seeking
  • Selective Exposure
  • Source Expertise

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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