Echo Chambers in Political Communication: The Case of Istanbul Convention on Twitter

Korištenjem online kanala za informiranje i javnu raspravu građani imaju pristup različitim izvorima informacija te stavovima drugih. Tehnološke mogućnosti online kanala također otvaraju mogućnost veće personalizacije sadržaja od strane korisnika. Vlastitim izborom korisnika koje će pratiti na društvenim mrežama te algoritama koji mu temeljem prethodnih odabira predlažu drugi sadržaj građani se mogu naći u online eho komorama gdje primaju samo sadržaj koji odgovara njihovim prethodnim uvjerenjima. U ovom radu pokušali smo odrediti koje su indicije postojanja eho komora pri raspravi o Istanbulskoj konvenciji na Twitteru. Izračunom eksterno-internog indeksa kojim se uspoređuje odnos vanjskih i unutarnjih grupnih veza pokazalo se kako grupe s obzirom na broj i veličinu u očekivanoj mjeri komuniciraju te nema indikacija da su se u raspravi stvorile eho komore.Citizens have access to various information sources and opinions through online channels. Technological possibilities of online channels also enable greater personalization of content from a user perspective. Citizens can choose what users they will follow on social media and algorithms further personalize content displayed by suggesting new content based on previously accessed one. This can create echo chambers where citizens are only exposed to content that is in line with their opinions and preferences and foster homophily and polarization of groups. With this work we tried to determine possibility of echo chambers existing on Twitter in user discussion about Croatian ratification of Istanbul convention. By calculating external-internal index that compares relations in group and between groups we found out that groups communicate like it would be expected considering their size and number of groups. There is no indication of echo chambers existing