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Democracy in the 21st century: social media and politics - global village or cyber-Balkans?

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Democracy in the 21st century: social media and politics - global village or cyber-Balkans?

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DEMOCRACY IN THE 21
st
CENTURY:

SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICS –
GLOBAL VILLAGE or CYBER-BALKANS?

by

David Ingenito II

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(STRATEGIC PUBLIC RELATIONS)

May 2010

Copyright 2010 David Ingenito II

ii
Table of Contents
List of Tables iii

List of Figures iv

Abstract v

Chapter I: Introduction 1

Chapter II: Definitions of Common Terms 5
Chapter III: Literature Review 9
Chapter IV: Research Question 40
Chapter V: Methodology 41
Chapter VI: Results 42
Chapter VII: Analysis 45
Chapter VIII: Conclusion 50
Bibliography 55
Appendix
Data Collected During Content Analysis 60

iii
List of Tables
Table I: Monthly Unique Visitors – MySpace and Facebook 19
Table II: Monthly Unique Visitors – Twitter and Facebook 22
Table III: Survey Group Population 42
Table IV: Group Comment Analysis 44

iv
List of Figures
Figure I: A Standard Facebook User Profile 18

Figure II: A Standard Twitter User Account 25

v
Abstract
Though much research has been conducted on the development of
the Internet and its role in helping to connect previously discordant political
populations through the use of chat rooms and message boards, thus far
little attention in academia has been paid to the relatively new platform of
social networking and its potential to either promote or discourage
“cyberbalkanization.” An exciting medium with seemingly endless potential,
without further study the eventual and ultimate impact of social media on
both the democratic process and civic engagement in the United States
cannot be fully understood. This master’s thesis aims to explore the topic
of social media and political cyberbalkanization and to determine the extent
to which the phenomenon occurs on the popular social networking site
Facebook. An extensive review of prior work on the topic is first conducted
and is then followed by an outline of the current effort’s methodology, its
results and finally an analysis of the research’s findings and their
implications for the future of social media and democracy in the
21
st
century.

1
Chapter I: Introduction
During the past 100 years, the world has experienced a
communication revolution. Almost like clockwork, every few decades a new
form of technology has emerged to single-handedly redefine how the
citizens of the world interact with one another. From the telephone and the
radio to the television and the personal computer, the methods and
mediums of communication available to individuals today would likely seem
almost mind-boggling to the average turn-of-the-century American of the
1890s.
Today, the Internet has quickly cemented itself as the
communication medium of the early 21
st
century. Transforming the way
individuals work, shop, talk to friends, keep in touch with family and even
entertain themselves, the Internet is today so pervasive that it is often
difficult to think of a world without it. Just beginning to enter the
mainstream of US consciousness in the early 1990s, the Internet is now
used almost instinctively when the need to gather information or
communicate with others arises. Unlike other mediums that have
developed over the course of the past century, however, the Internet still
exists largely in a “frontier” stage. While individuals have had decades to
develop, learn and incorporate other technologies such as the telephone or
television into their lives, because of its relative youth, new uses and

2
adaptations for the Internet are continually being developed at an almost
lightening pace.
To date, one of the most impressive applications of the Internet, from
a communications perspective, has been its use in facilitating the
development of “social media.” A decade ago one would have been
puzzled when asked if he or she were “on” Facebook or Twitter; today
these sites are household names and help millions of users around the
world connect seamlessly. Allowing users to share stories, photos,
thoughtful ideas or random tangents with a click of a button, social media,
though once viewed much like the Internet itself as a mere “fad,” is today
helping users to connect with each other like never before and create virtual
communities that are oftentimes as lively and insightful as their
counterparts in the physical world.
Interestingly, while these developments were first viewed – much as
their name suggests – as social applications concerned more with having
fun online than encouraging intellectual discourse, websites such as
Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have become increasingly important tools
for their members to discuss topics of a more serious nature, particularly
politics. Today, the tens of thousands of political discussions currently
populated on these sites allow members from around the corner and across
the globe to discuss and debate the issues, trends and topics they find
most interesting and immediate. Recognizing this important trend,

3
researchers have begun to question whether this political use of the
Internet will be helpful, harmful or irrelevant to large democracies such as
the United States (Bimber, 2006). As Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero asked
during their work in 2009, despite the fact that existing research
demonstrates that group membership encourages trust, democratic values
and the development of important political skills, do these benefits extend to
online group membership?
Indeed, mindful of this very question, many researchers have
become concerned that virtual group membership may in fact be leading to
political fragmentation rather than encouraging the types of discussion and
understanding that are vital to a healthy democracy. “As political
communication [on social media sites] is strategically customized to appeal
to smaller subgroups, and as emphasis of communication shifts from
persuading people to activating (or de-activating) people on the basis of
their fixed positions, the result could be increasing alienation and the
thinning of the public’s commitment to democratic processes (Bimber,
2006, p. 158).” Although the Internet has been frequently promoted as a
technology that promotes unification among discordant populations
(because of its ability to transcend both time and space), could social
media, in fact, be having the opposite effect and inadvertently segregating
individuals into homogeneous in-groups as it reduces both the public’s

4
exposure to common political messaging and the capacity of political elites
and central institutions to shape coherent agenda for societies?
The following research will attempt to answer this very question.
While social media is an exciting and seemingly endless frontier filled with
new possibilities for personal connections and political debate, its ultimate
impact on both the democratic process and civic engagement is as yet
unknown. By examining in greater detail this increasingly popular trend of
political discussion via social media, the phenomenon’s ultimate cumulative
impact can be better gauged and ways in which it can be influenced in a
fashion beneficial to the health of American democracy can be better
understood.

5
Chapter II: Definitions of Common Terms
To understand the concepts discussed in this thesis, it is important to
review accepted definitions of commonly used terms.
a. Internet
An electronic network of networks that links people and
information through computers and other digital devices
allowing person-to-person communication and information
retrieval (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman and Robinson,
2001).
b. Balkanization
Coined at the end of World War I to describe the ethnic and
political fragmentation following the breakup of the Ottoman
Empire, the term most commonly refers to the division of a
multinational state into smaller, ethnically homogeneous
entities but may also be used to identify ethnic conflict within
a single multiethnic state
(The Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010).
c. Cyber-balkanization
A concept which postulates that although the Internet
renders geographic impediments irrelevant, certain
electronic communities remain divided along lines of
common factor or interest. Additionally, the term refers to

6
“the degree to which [these groups’] resources exist as
disconnected islands within a larger population (Van Alstyne
and Brynjolfsson, 1997, p. 6).”
d. Social Network
A set of people, organizations or other social entities
connected by a set of socially meaningful relationships.
When a computer network connects people, it is a social
network (Wellman, 1997).
e. Facebook
An online social-networking website that lets users interact
with each other by sharing information about themselves via
personal profiles (Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero, 2009).
f. Facebook Friends
Contacts whose profiles are linked to another user’s profile
(Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero, 2009).
g. Facebook Wall
A space on a user's profile page that allows friends to post
messages for the user. Many use their friends' walls to
leave short, temporal notes (Facebook.com, 2009).

7
h. Facebook Groups
A common space where users can meet others interested in
a specific topic, disseminate information and conduct
relevant public discussions (Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero,
2009).
i. Microblogging
A form of blogging that lets users write brief text updates
(usually less than 200 characters) about their lives on the go
and send them to friends and interested observers via text
messaging, instant messaging (IM), email or the web (Java,
Finin, Song and Tseng, 2007).
j. Twitter
A service for users to communicate and stay connected
through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.
Individuals write short updates, often called "tweets," of 140
characters or fewer. These messages are then posted to
individuals’ profiles, sent to their followers and are
searchable on Twitter.com
(Twitter.com, 2009).
k. Twitter Follower
An individual who receives and views another’s Twitter
updates (Sharpened.net, 2009).

8
l. Tweet
An update published by a Twitter user. Similar to a blog
posting, tweets cannot exceed 140 characters and are
meant to answer the question "What are you doing?" to
provide others with quick updates about the user’s life
(Sharpened.net, 2009).
m. Retweet (or RT)
To share the tweet of another user with all of one’s
followers. Retweets are usually prefaced with "RT
@username” (Hubpages.com, 2009).

9
Chapter III: Literature Review
“When I took office, only high-energy physicists had ever heard of what is
called the World Wide Web...Now even my cat has its own page.”
~ William J. Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America, 1996

A. The Internet Revolution
During its first 20 years, the Internet remained predominately hidden
from public view and functioned as the private and entirely commerce-free
domain of scientists and the U.S. military. Less than two decades after its
privatization, however, the Internet has become a basic and essential part
of everyday American life and has changed the way many people shop,
work, communicate, gather news and even date (Okin, 2005; Kreuger,
2002). Combining the audiovisual components of traditional forms of media
such as the newspaper and television with the interactivity and speed of the
telephone, the Internet “has forever altered how we access information and
the variety and quantity of information we access, empowering us to gain
knowledge through a richness of resources that was previously only
imagined in science fiction (Okin, 2005, p. 17).”
As Internet usage expanded in the early 1990s, there was
considerable optimism that an age of low-cost information production and
egalitarian public conversation in cyberspace would transform and deepen
democracy. Whereas once individuals were reliant on media gatekeepers
(be it radio, television or print) to provide them with the important news and

10
stories of the day, it was hoped that 21
st
century Americans would have
ever-increasing control over what information they accessed, when they
accessed it and in what manner it was accessed. Many in both academia
and cyberspace in fact hoped that the technological advances and
improved access to the means of producing, distributing and receiving
information would allow ordinary citizens to become broadcasters and
publishers capable of sidelining the once powerful barons of mass media.
Illustrating their point further, these individuals even coined a new term,
netizen, to conjure up notions of politically engaged Internet citizens coming
together online to identify and deliberate upon the issues of the day
(Longford and Patten, 2007).
With the advent of news aggregating sites such as Google News and
the development of more ideologically specific websites such as
The Huffington Post and the Drudge Report, the dream these individuals
shared for increased variety and control of the news media has largely
become a reality. Today, average Americans enjoy the relative freedom of
deciding which information sources they will patron and to what news on
those sites they will give priority (Longford and Patten, 2007). Furthermore,
through websites such as Blogger.com and the Cable News Network’s
(CNN) iReport, individual citizens now even have unique opportunities to
personally report on stories they find of interest or share their own
viewpoints on the finer points of the day’s top stories.

11
While these developments have been lauded for their positive impact
on American freedom of speech, currently what is less clear is the extent to
which this new freedom is ultimately impacting American democracy as a
whole (Okin, 2005). Whereas previously individuals were exposed,
intentionally or otherwise, to a plethora of viewpoints as a result of the
relatively limited number of news outlets from which one could collect
information, with the advent of Internet websites tailoring themselves to
increasingly specific topics or perspectives in order to garner interest and
readership, it is unknown whether the American populace is become
increasingly siloed according to socio-political ideology. Without a stable
and common foundation from which to base disagreements, could political
debates begin to strain American democracy as the participants approach
one another from vastly disparate ideological and factual perspectives?
B. Group Membership in the Physical World
Researchers have found repeatedly that when people are involved in
groups and voluntary actions in the physical world, both individuals and
society benefit. Social scientists have found a number of unique
advantages that individuals gain from group membership and associations
and some have even prescribed participation in groups as an “all-purpose
elixir for the ills of society (Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero, 2009, p. 3).”
Perhaps the most interesting findings to emerge from their studies,
however, are those highlighting the positive correlation that exists between

12
group membership and political participation in democratic societies such
as the United States. By opening channels for discussion that can lead to
more informed decision making and higher rates of political activity, many
researchers have now come to view physical-world group membership as
an instrumental and invaluable asset in encouraging the sustained
development of a healthy democracy (Delli, Carpini and Keeter, 1997;
Fishkin, 1991; Robinson and Levy, 1986). Promoting learning and efficacy
amongst citizens by necessitating the expression of views and forcing more
thoughtful considerations of viewpoints, those in academia have continually
described group membership as helping individuals develop the skills
necessary for a deeper understanding and subsequent engagement in the
political affairs of the United States (Taber and Lodge, 2006; Huckfeldt,
2007; Gastil, Deess and Weisler, 2002; Scheufele, 2002; Nisbit and
Scheufele 2004).
While experts have found many positive aspects of group
membership in the physical world, they have also been extremely cautious
to note that these benefits are only as diverse as an individual’s network.
“When most people discuss politics, their conversations usually take place
within primary groups of family and close friends – that is, among like-
minded people who largely resemble each other socially and politically
(Price and Capella, 2002, p. 5).” As a result, the diversity of an individual’s
network is extremely important in determining the extent to which they are

13
beneficiaries of the many advantages extended by group association.
Although individuals may find companionship and friendship in groups of
likeminded individuals, they are not forced nearly as often to defend their
personal and political beliefs as within a more heterogeneous group. While
more socially secure, individuals in relatively homogeneous groups have
their own political viewpoints and ideological perspectives continuously
reinforced with little or no opposition provided as a counterpoint (Price and
Capella, 2002). Though not necessarily negative when viewed from a
psychosocial perspective, researchers have nevertheless found this type of
interaction among relatively homogeneous individuals to be of overall less
value in helping to foster and maintain the active and lively political
discourse so vital to a healthy democracy.
C. The Rise of Social Media
As defined in 2007 by Boyd and Elison during their seminal piece on
Internet networking, social media sites are web-based services that allow
individuals to:
(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,
(2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection
and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by
others within the system.
Since their introduction in the late 1990s, social networking sites such as
MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and Friendster have registered millions

14
of users across the globe, including many who have now incorporated the
sites as daily practice within their lives. Unlike other services such as chat
rooms or internet dating sites, the defining aspect and unique niche of
social media is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but, rather
that they enable users to connect and make public their personal social
networks (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).
Whereas the aforementioned Facebook and Twitter are today two of
the most recognized social media platforms in the world, the pioneer of the
social media site was, in fact, the little known and now defunct
SixDegrees.com. While SixDegrees was not the first Internet site to allow
users to create a profile, list friends or chat with others, it was the first
service to combine all three of these functions into one unified platform.
Though the site was able to attract approximately one million users at its
height, reflecting on SixDegrees’ early failure, former CEO Andrew
Weinreich notes that “while people were already flocking to the Internet,
most did not have extended networks of friends who were online…early
adopters complained that there was little to do after accepting Friend
requests, and most users were not interested in meeting strangers (Boyd
and Ellison, 2007).”
Today, the concerns that stifled the growth of social networking in
the late 1990s – and seemingly ensured the failure of SixDegrees.com –
have been slowly negated as access to the Internet in the United States

15
has steadily increased. With more than 163.3 million Internet users in
2009, the use of social networking sites in the United States has
skyrocketed over the past three years (Schonfeld, 2009). According to a
2009 Forrester Research report, 55.6 million adults – or just less than 1/3rd
of the U.S. population – now visit social networking sites at least monthly,
up from just 15% of adults in 2007 and around 18% in 2008. Although
some may have predicted that social networking would become just
another technological “fad,” with continued growth across all age
demographics and these networks’ introduction into countries rich and poor
across the globe, for at least the foreseeable future, it appears as though
this is one popular platform that is here to stay (Ostrow, 2009).
While in its earliest incarnations individuals utilized social media sites
primarily to connect with friends, relatives or other contacts they had in the
“real world,” as the medium has matured over the past decade, so has the
depth and breath of its feature set. Today, users can share photos, post
links and even write blog articles for their profiles to let their friends know
how that first date with Mr. X went or that they got the big interview at
Company Y. Aside from these expansions, another key area where social
networking sites have shown rapid growth is in the development of member
“groups.” A fairly recent addition, the creation of these discussion sections
now affords members of social media sites a common area to meet
likeminded others where they can discuss in greater detail those topics or

16
events they find of interest. Though forums related to college sports and
celebrity life are, not unsurprisingly, active, one of the most popular
subjects discussed on social media sites is politics (HuffingtonPost.com,
2009).
Interestingly, during their first iterations, social scientists were unsure
whether the political debates taking place via social media would ultimately
prove fruitful. Balancing those concerns with excitement over the medium’s
seemingly endless potential for collaborative debate, the literature
regarding social media’s effects on political life has been described as
passing through three distinct stages: unjustifiable euphoria, abrupt and
equally unjustifiable skepticism and, today, a gradual realization that web-
based human interaction really does have unique and politically significant
properties (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman and Robinson, 2001). Prior to the
Internet the communicative spaces of the public sphere were limited to
public squares and social meeting places (such as pubs and coffee houses)
as well as the associational life of social and community organizations.
Today social media groups have transformed these spaces by expanding
their number and reach. Enabling individuals to “transcend physical space
and time” through the deft manipulation of cyberspace and hold meaningful
discussions regardless of where they and their counterparts are terrestrially
located, social media groups have recently experienced explosive
worldwide growth and are now seen by most in academia as contributing

17
meaningfully, in at least some form, to the political discourse of democratic
societies (Longford and Patten, 2007).
D. Popular Social Media Platforms
Facebook
Founded in 2004, Facebook.com is today the world’s largest social
networking site (Facebook, 2009). Originally known as “The facebook,” the
platform’s originator is Mark Zuckerberg, an avid computer programmer
who wrote the code for the now ubiquitous site in less than two months
while an undergraduate student at Harvard University. Deriving its name
from the books distributed to freshman university students profiling students
and staff, “The facebook” was originally available only to Harvard students
during its initial release. Even during these formative days, however, it was
clear that “The facebook’s” social networking formula was likely a winner:
within 24 hours of its launch 1,200 Harvard students were members, and
only one month later over half of the undergraduate population had
established a profile. Promptly expanding to other universities in the
Boston area and eventually to all colleges in the United States, the site
became known simply as “Facebook” in August 2005 and was rapidly made
available to college students worldwide.

18

Figure I: A Standard Facebook User Profile
Source: Facebook.com, 2009

19
As a result of their original strategy to solely admit university
students as members, during the site’s first two years of existence,
Facebook officials found that their user base remained a fairly closed and
concentrated community. After establishing Facebook as the premier
social networking platform within this demographic, however, the
company’s leadership began to look at other populations where it could
expand and further broaden the site’s reach within the fast-evolving and
lucrative “new media” market (Phillips, 2007). By September 2006,
Facebook membership was offered beyond educational institutions to
anyone with a registered email address and, as a result, in December 2008
Facebook surged past rival social media site MySpace to become the

Source: Compete.com, 2009
Table I: Monthly Unique Visitors – MySpace and Facebook

20
world’s most popular. Today the site boasts more than 350 million
registered users and is available to members in more than 70 different
languages (Facebook, 2009).
Over the past five years, Facebook’s leaders have worked
continuously to stay true to the site’s founding premise of “helping people
communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers
(Facebook, 2009).” Since its creation in 2004, however, several
modifications have fundamentally changed how its users interact with one
another. Over the course of this development, new features such as the
Facebook wall (a forum for users’ friends to post comments or insights
about them), Facebook group (a common space where users can meet
others interested in a specific topic) and Facebook page (a space allowing
local businesses, brands, musicians and all types of organizations to create
a presence on Facebook) have been introduced to help facilitate dialogue
and conversation amongst users (Facebook.com, 2009). Because of this
rapid growth and the introduction of these new communicative tools, many
scholars have begun to postulate that the site “may be a better means of
achieving a true public sphere than anything that has come before it, online
or otherwise…there is no other online community that connects members of
real-world communities (geographic, ideological or otherwise) in such an
effective way (Westling, 2007, p. 4).” Combining the features of local
bulletin boards, newspapers and town hall meetings and placing them in

21
one location that is available at any time in practically any location,
Facebook allows all members of a community the opportunity to contribute
on a given topic while affording them the flexibility of deciding when and
how they become involved (Westling, 2007).
Similarly, “by providing an outlet for young Americans to interpret
political information and participate in political discussions, [many scholars
believe] Facebook has become a positive addition to the world of political
communication (Westling, 2007, p. 12).” Allowing individuals from across
the street and around the globe to discuss and debate the political
happenings of the day, many in academia see Facebook as paving the way
for a new avenue of democratic dialogue in the digital age. Explored briefly
by Michael Westling during his research on the political implications of
Facebook, the site’s feature most often cited as an example of such political
communication is that of the “groups” function. “These sorts of groups are
extremely valuable, giving political junkies around the world a forum to
come together and share insights into the mechanisms controlling
American politics. Similar discussions have taken place for years on blogs
and message boards, but the Facebook format gives a more personal
flavor to the debate (Westling, 2007, p. 6).”
Another key Facebook feature relevant to political dialogue is the
ability for users to “share” a news story, video or webpage with fellow
members via their Facebook “wall,” a space on profile pages allocated for

22
messaging. One of the most recent additions to Facebook, this “share”
function enables stories to spread across the network in a viral manner
while also providing the opportunity for other users to comment on the
“post” and give their own opinions or provide supplemental sources of
information. Taken together, the many features and improvements
introduced by Facebook over the past five years have helped to greatly
expand the site’s ability to serve as a conduit for meaningful political
discussion and to cement its position as an outlet where thoughtful
comments and issue-based debates are not only tolerated, but welcomed
and eagerly sought by engaged parties.
Twitter
Although not as popular as rival Facebook, Twitter.com is another
social networking site that has taken both the nation and world by storm.
Table II: Monthly Unique Visitors - Twitter and Facebook
Source: Compete.com, 2009

23
A microblogging service which enables users to send messages (called
“tweets”) of 140 characters or less to others who “follow” them, Twitter
helps users publish their answer to the question of “What are you doing?”
by sharing their activities, opinions and status. Fulfilling the need for an
even faster mode of communication than other social media sites can
provide, Twitter has quickly emerged as a pop-culture phenomenon and
has become so popular that many now see it as the “source of breaking
news and rumors…the new pulsating heart of the real-time Internet (Java,
Finin, Song and Tseng, 2007; Malik, 2009).”
Conceived in early 2006 at Obvious Corp. when its employees were
tasked with finding suitable options to diversify the company’s product
portfolio, Twitter was originally designed as a fairly lightweight and easy-to-
use service that members could update with their mobile phones in order to
keep in touch with friends. Reaching a turning point in popular
consciousness during 2007’s South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in
Austin, TX when it was cleverly used by reporters to keep tabs on the
venue’s performances, Twitter’s user base has since exploded both in the
United States and abroad. Though it logs less than 20% of the unique
monthly visitors as rival Facebook, Twitter nevertheless experienced growth
of nearly 550% in 2009 and is now the third most popular social networking
site in the world (Kazeniac, 2009).

24
Today, individuals have expanded Twitter past its original design and
utilize the site to broadcast information far beyond simple status updates;
even employing it to help organize and disseminate information during
major events like the 2008 California wildfires, the 2008 Mumbai massacre
and the January 2009 crash of US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson
River (Sysomos, 2009). Perhaps more surprising than this growth and
increased utilization, however, is the impact Twitter has begun to have on
the American political system. Since its rather remarkable introduction
during the 2008 Presidential election, Twitter has become the newest digital
front in the battle for public opinion and voter support in the United States.
Amid arguments about healthcare reform and the economy, Twitter has
evolved into a major outlet for politicos and everyday citizens to connect,
hash out ideas and air complaints. With facts and ideas able to percolate
almost anywhere on the site and spread without centralized control, in just
three short years Twitter has become a powerful and potent 21
st
century
tool valued by both government leaders and the American electorate
because of its potential to cultivate the meaningful dialogue essential to a
healthy democracy (Personal Democracy Forum, 2009).
Unlike Facebook, where political discussion is most often fostered
through the use of its “groups” feature, the unique approach taken by
Twitter in which individuals are only able to communicate with one another
in short “tweets” has led site users to develop their own community style

25
and manner of political discourse. With few neutral political observers
outside of journalists found to populate Twitter, political “tweets” on the site
have been lumped by observers into liberal and conservative “buckets”
(Ammah-Tagoe, 2009). Although scholars researching the topic have
found that both of these groups are utilizing Twitter to engage in lively and
active political discussions via the site, media analysts, including those at
The Washington Times and CNN, have noted that the conversations of
Figure II: A Standard Twitter User Account
Source: Twitter.com, 2009

26
liberals and conservatives are “radically different” from one another and
have largely ceded the battle thus far to the GOP.
According to new-media specialists, conservatives see Twitter as an
online soapbox for Republican leaders to reach large audiences when
traditional media outlets are focused on other more timely stories or simply
won’t pay attention (Ammah-Tagoe, 2009). Utilized to a lesser extent
during the 2008 Presidential election, this strategy was most successfully
employed by conservatives during 2009’s Tea Party protests when
individuals organized outside of traditional media establishments to rally
against excess government taxation and spending. In contrast to this
approach, most of the liberal conversation on Twitter isn't coming from the
Democratic Party but, instead, from grassroots organizers interested in
building a base of like-minded activists. Unlike conservatives, progressives
see Twitter as a tool to connect people with each other and collate support
from the bottom up, rather than send messages from the top down. “Right
now, (conservatives) on Twitter can dominate the national conversation
with their constant chatter. That, in turn, draws their supporters into the
political fray. But local groups can be a powerful force in winning
elections…and, for now, progressives on Twitter seem better positioned to
harness that power and turn it into a force for the mainstream Democratic
Party (Ammah-Tagoe, 2009).” While it is thus far unclear which strategy
(conservative, progressive or an amalgamation of both) will ultimately prove

27
successful and better capitalize on the unique opportunities afforded by
Twitter, for now both sides seem to agree that the site, or at least the style
of communication it has pioneered, will be crucial to political discussion and
organization in the United States for years to come.
E. The Internet: Global Village or Cyber-Balkans?
As seen throughout the previous analyses of Facebook and Twitter,
social media, and by extension the Internet as a whole, holds an impressive
potential to expand interaction and improve relations between any number
of discordant populations that in prior generations would have had little or
no contact with one another. What is troubling, however, is that one of the
more exciting innovations of the Internet – the ability of users to personalize
and constrict their flows of information – may actually promote the very sort
of digital fragmentation, coined cyber-balkanization by Van Alstyne and
Brynjolfsson in 1997, that is detrimental to the public sphere. If individuals
utilize the Internet and tools such as social media to access information that
is consistently homogenous and only serves to reinforce their own political
viewpoints, many academics fear the result could ultimately have an
extremely detrimental effect on both the US political system and American
democracy as a whole. As described by Bimber in 2008, “the emergence of
a diverse range of counterpublics is a democratic response to homogeneity;
at the same time, social media’s capacity to foster hyper-atomization goes

28
further, potentially undercutting the shared text and common culture that is
essential to a well-functioning public sphere (p. 165).”
The term cyber-balkanization is a 21
st
-century update of the geo-
political concept of balkanization used to describe the ethnic conflicts that
arose after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 20
th
century. Unlike
balkanization, however, which was relatively isolated within a small portion
of Eastern Europe and fairly constrained by geographic location, if the
realities of cyber-balkanization so feared by many researchers do come to
fruition, its socio-political impact could negatively affect not only the United
States but democracies around the world that depend on active and fruitful
public discourse to develop solutions to their most difficult and vexing
dilemmas. In the words of the two scholars who originated this concept,
“voluntary [cyber-balkanization] might prove destructive to the overall
welfare of society due to over-specialization (Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson,
1997, p. 25).” With individuals able to restrict the flow of information they
receive via the Internet and essentially only absorb those points or ideals
with which they themselves personally agree, no longer will a common
platform exist from which those of conflicting viewpoints can even begin to
solve their ideological divides.
Currently, it is unknown what effect or impact, if any, cyber-
balkanization will ultimately have on the populace of the United States.
Even without this knowledge, however, scholars have expressed concerns

29
that while cyber-balkanization “in one or more dimensions of our
interactions may or may not be desirable…once achieved, it can be difficult
to reverse (Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson, 1997, p. 17).” A question that
has thus far captivated a generation of communication scholars, because of
the quickly evolving and highly fluid nature of the Internet, many in
academia have been hard pressed to find data substantial enough to firmly
assert with any degree of certainty the final influence cyber-balkanization
will have on this country. Although uncertainty is always disconcerting to a
degree, some in the academic community have nonetheless taken comfort
knowing that “in any event….no single scenario is inevitable (Van Alstyne
and Brynjolfsson, 1997, p. 17).” While the legacy of the Internet and its
ultimate effect on the people of the United States cannot ultimately be
written until it has completely transpired, by further understanding the
concepts and trends its technological advances are fostering, both
academics and the general populace will be better prepared to assess the
Internet’s socio-political impact and can work preemptively to limit any
negative effects it may cause as a result.
F. Global Village or Cyber-Balkans: The Optimists Versus the Pessimists
As seen briefly in the previous section, most scholars who have
conducted academic research on the topic of the Internet and cyber-
balkanization can be lumped into one of two general categories with
respect to their views on the ultimate impact of the technology on civic and

30
political life: either extremely optimistic at its enormous and never-before-
seen capacity to open lines of communication between opposing or even
isolated communities and expose them to new ideas and contrary
perspectives or pessimistic that it will only serve to harden already well-
demarcated lines of difference and further polarize communities with
reaffirming rhetoric. Looking more specifically at its potential for political
impact, scholars optimistic about the future of the Internet believe that it
promotes democracy in a variety of ways, typically by lowering the costs of
communication, association and participation, and thus will ultimately have
a net positive effect on the state of political discourse in the United States
(Rheingold, 2000). Conversely, academics with a more negative
perception of the Internet’s political implications caution that it will likely not
lead to significant changes in political behavior and may even harm public
life in a variety of ways (Margolis and Resnick, 2000; Sustein, 2001). In the
next two sections, both of these positions will be further analyzed in order to
better understand scholars’ rationales for their ideologically positive or
negative perspectives, with the ultimate goal being to apply this knowledge
to the current study’s research conducted in Chapter V.
Optimists
In the view of those optimistic about the future of the Internet and its
ability to have a positive impact on the socio-political development of the
United States, the Internet is a unique and fascinating technology that

31
should be more widely embraced as it holds enormous untapped potential
to elevate the nature of human interaction (Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson,
1997). According to these individuals, “there is evidence to suggest that
the Internet plays a supplemental, rather than supplanting, role for face-to-
face and phone conversations, that Internet users use [the medium] to
build, maintain and extend their personal relationships and that [it] can be
used to improve civic culture in cities (Williams, 2007, p. 399).” Perhaps
not surprisingly, optimists thus believe that the Internet can and should play
a vital role in fostering the continued development of healthy democratic
discourse in the United States.
Recently, those optimistic about the socio-political benefits of the
Internet have become increasingly confident due to the development of
“new media” sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Although previous tools
including email, listservs and group message boards facilitated political
dialogue amongst users, the ease, speed and convenience with which
social media can now transmit such information has helped to exponentially
increase the bandwidth available for these conversations. Incorporating
groundbreaking technology that capitalizes on the speed and usability
upgrades pioneered during the development of Web 2.0, in the eyes of
optimists, social media sites have helped to tear down many of the walls of
division (be they geographic, social or political) that existed prior to the

32
Internet and found ways to bridge them by fostering new found connections
and conversation (Williams, 2007).
Much of the argument put forth by those who foresee cyber-
balkanization as a likely outcome of the political use of the Internet base
their claim on the core concept that, due to the Internet’s ability to allow
users to self-select information and perspectives, individuals become
surrounded in a “cocoon” of self-supportive news and data without ever
encountering other perspectives that might challenge their own or
necessitate them to defend their personal stances (Deibert, 2002;
Wojcieszak and Mutz, 2009). Although there are still a considerable
amount of variables for those in academia to research before proven
conclusively, early work by Knobloch-Westerwick and Meng has found that
while most do indeed practice selective exposure when utilizing the
Internet, many also pay attention to information that challenges their beliefs.
In fact, individuals with strong partisan views and an interest in politics were
found to be the most likely to view counter-attitudinal information because
they were confident enough to read other perspectives
(MediaConvergence.org, 2009). Interested in the political happenings of
their surroundings and self-assured in their own viewpoints and positions,
participants in Knobloch-Westerwick and Meng’s research helped set a
reassuring tone for Internet optimists that the medium is, indeed, helping to
usher in a new digital age of political understanding and enlightenment.

33
A second study by Magdalena Wojcieszak and Diana Mutz also
lends credence to the optimists’ stance. In their article Online Groups and
Political Discourse: Do Online Discussion Spaces Facilitate Exposure to
Political Disagreement?, the researchers worked to understand the extent
to which non-political online discussion spaces (such as chatrooms and
message boards about hobbies or other activities) expose participants to
political talk and cross-cutting political views. Drawing on a representative
national sample of over 1000 Americans, the researchers found “promising
political discussion in groups organized around nonpolitical topics…[with]
political discussions that...frequently involve participants who disagree with
each other. Our results, therefore, suggest an especially promising
contribution of casual political talk online, in that these…exchanges expose
participants to dissimilar perspectives (Wojcieszak and Mutz, 2009, pg. 45,
50).” Optimistic in nature, the supportive empirical evidence of Wojcieszak
and Mutz again lends credibility to the notion that a positive perspective of
political exchanges via the Internet may very well be warranted.
The final seminal piece to be published against the cyber-
balkanization theory of the Internet was written by researcher Dmitri
Williams in 2007. In The Impact of Time Online: Social Capital and
Cyber-balkanization, Williams found that his “cyber-balkanization
hypotheses were not supported by the data on the predicted dimensions of
decreased exposure to diverse people or out-group antagonism. Instead,

34
the data suggested that the opposite was the case. The simple correlation
between time online and the diversity of personal contacts was significantly
positive (Williams, 2007, p. 401).” Thus, contrary to the notion that time
online serves to isolate individuals into specific in-groups that are socially
and politically homogeneous, Williams found that the mere act of spending
time on the Internet helped to diversify individuals’ perspectives and
ideological outlooks by exposing them, either intentionally or not, to
viewpoints new and different than their own.
Furthermore, after examining the data he collected over the course
of his research, Williams was able to deduce another major benefit of the
Internet in helping to expand and diversify individuals’ interactions with
dissimilar others. “Very low entry and exit costs mean that, while the
resulting groups may have less cohesion and social support, they will
consist of individuals from a broader range of backgrounds...who tend to be
less like one another and therefore link members to a broader range of
ideas, backgrounds and opportunities (Williams, 2007, p. 404).” While the
bonds of interaction and friendship via the Internet may be relatively weaker
than those found in the “real world,” because less personal capital is
required to become involved in these online communities, the opportunity
and ability for individuals to associate themselves with others is less costly
and thus becomes more likely to occur with increased frequency. In the
words of Williams, “the Internet…offer[s] links to people and ideas in a way

35
that is healthy for a diverse population and a democratic state
(Williams, 2007, p. 403).”
Pessimists
Even as many academics view the Internet as holding great promise
to improve the breadth and depth of political discourse in this country, there
does exist an equally large group of their peers who sees political dialogue
via cyberspace leading to an atmosphere of decreased cross-party
interaction and exchange. Among the leading proponents of this viewpoint
is James A. Thomson, president and CEO of the non-profit think tank the
RAND Corporation. During a September 2009 interview in the Korea
Times, Thomson noted “polarization in the US has reached its highest
measure since the late 19
th
century. We [no longer] have political debates,
only political warfare. Traditional media, such as newspapers and TV
broadcasters, try to create a more total and objective report of news.
However, new media is the issue, new media is why we are in for an
extended period of political warfare (Korea Times, 2009).” As seen
through these comments, Thomson finds more conventional sources of
news such as print and broadcast helping to fashion a 360° holistic picture
of the country’s political happenings while social media sites, such as
Facebook and Twitter, only serve as divisive tools that ideologically isolate
individuals across party lines.

36
Noted legal scholar and behavior analyst Cass Sunstein echoed the
cyber-balkanization concerns of James Thomson when he commented that
“when like-minded people cluster, they often aggravate their biases,
spreading falsehoods. They end up in a more extreme position in line with
their tendencies than before the deliberation began (Susnsein, 2007, p.
445).” Whether they occur in the real world or digitally, the effects of such
aggravation along well-demarcated boundaries has led many
communication researchers such as Sustein to argue that oftentimes “more
information, rather than tending to expand choices and opinions, in fact
narrows and calcifies them (RosenblumTV, 2009).” While these scholars
suggest that this type of polarization may, in some way, be traceable to a
far deeper human psychological desire to conform and avoid unnecessary
or unwanted attention, they nevertheless strongly caution that “as the
infospace expands and becomes ever more interactive, it may prove to be
true that instead of creating a world that is more diverse in opinion and
taste, we will create one that is in fact more sterile and less diverse
(RosenblumTV, 2009).”
Although the visibility of the concept of cyber-balkanization has been
elevated in recent years due to the explosive growth of the Internet and the
public comments of well-known scholars such as Thomson and Sustein, it
is interesting to note that even during the early and most formative days of
the Internet, some foresaw many of the challenges the technology could

37
potentially cultivate once mature. Marshall Van Alstyne and Erik
Brynjolfsson, two MIT researchers who helped pioneer the concept of
cyber-balkanization in the late 1990s, wrote during a 1996 piece that “if
individuals can choose their content, contacts and connections, then
emphasizing preferred communities can balkanize interactions. If, for
example, a person chooses to interact with a dozen communities when
serendipitous geographic interaction would have led to several dozen, then
the breadth of exposure to novel information is likely to fall (Van Alstyne
and Brynjolfsson, 1996, p. 12).” While geography imposes unavoidable
heterogeneity, Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson were concerned that a virtual
community of like-minded citizens might be entirely homogenous and, as a
result, a fragmented public sphere might be created where distinct
communities would ultimately congeal as disparate islands of political
communication (Deibert, 2002). Reaffirming this viewpoint during several
subsequent publications and fearfully warning their academic peers that the
consequence of cyber-balkanization is one that runs wholly counter to the
enrichment of deliberative democracy, Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson
continue their pioneering research today while also devoting significant
effort to uncovering ways in which the negative effects they find being
facilitated through the Internet can be mitigated (Deibert, 2002).
Finally, those who support the concept of cyber-balkanization and
believe it to be a likely outcome of political discussion via the Internet have

38
recently begun to point to parallel research conducted on the subject of
online blogging suggesting that, shaped by cyber-tools and information,
virtual communities may be becoming less diverse in their opinions than
their counterparts in the physical world (RosenblumTV.com, 2009).
According to research during the 2004 US election cycle by Lada Adamic
and Natalie Glance, political blogs have divided into two clearly defined
camps from which there is virtually no crossover. In Divided They Blog, the
two researchers tracked more than 1,000 political blogs during the election
and discovered that “liberals and conservatives [remain] primarily within
their separate communities, with far fewer cross-links exchanged between
them. This division extend[s] into their discussions, with liberal and
conservative blogs focusing on different news articles, topics and political
figures (Adamic and Glance, 2005, p. 14).” When they found that more
than 90 percent of the links posted on sites in the survey population stayed
within or reinforced the original view of the base blog, Adamic and Glance
further confirmed their results and, ultimately, deduced that by the utility of
choice lent to Internet users, those surfing the web are opting to primarily
join groups and discuss politics with others with whom they agree. As a
result, while spatially broad, the authors conclude their research fearing that
the wealth of political information to be found online and in its many virtual
communities may be increasingly narrowing ideologically and, as a result,

39
be leading to a harmful deterioration of the necessary cross-party citizen
dialogue key to the continued strength of American democracy.

40
Chapter IV: Research Question
After thoroughly examining the topic of cyber-balkanization and the
Internet, the following question examines what, if any, continued impact this
trend may be having following the development of a recent and popular
Internet application, the social media site.
RQ1: As a result of the feature sets and search components
available to users of social media sites, when interacting with other
members about topics of a political nature, are individuals becoming
“balkanized” according to their specific ideological or issue stances?

41
Chapter V: Methodology
To gain an understanding of the types of political discourse that
occur on social networking sites and to determine the extent, if any, to
which these conversations lead to cyber-balkanization, a thorough content
analysis of 20 randomly selected, politically oriented “groups” from the
world’s most popular social networking application, Facebook, was
conducted. Accounting for the dimensions of information content and
quality available through these online groups, the data from these pages
was coded on a five-point Likert scale according to the following
characteristics: 1) number of posts, 2) links posted by group members, 3)
shared videos / shared pictures, 4) advertised events and 5) group wall
discussion. Furthermore, as they serve as a proxy for discussion that might
occur during face-to-face interaction in a traditional offline group, 10
comments from each groups’ wall (n = 200) were also coded on a five-point
Likert scale according to information content, comment length, opinion
strength and partisanship. To avoid potential research bias, both the
groups and comments selected for inclusion in the current study were
chosen by random number generation.

42
Chapter VI: Results
After analyzing the data from the 20 Facebook Groups selected for
the current study, a number of intriguing results illuminate valuable points at
the core of the previously identified “Research Question 1.” Chosen by
random number generation, the included groups represent a wide swath of
the political spectrum. Ranging from topics on abortion and the death
penalty to the Kyoto Protocol and same-sex marriage, no one ideological
outlook was seen to dominate Facebook and representative groups from
both conservative and liberal perspectives were seen in nearly equal
strength.
Table III: Survey Group Population

43
Overall, these groups were found to be an extremely popular feature
of the community, with an average of approximately 120,000 users having
joined as members and close to 2.5 million total members across the entire
sample. Furthermore, in addition to high group membership, the data also
suggests that these Facebook Groups are forums for extremely active
dialogue on their identified topics with the average group having more than
5,400 open group discussions. Outside of joining Facebook Groups in
large numbers and actively discussing the topic at hand upon becoming a
member, individuals were not found to further utilize the sites as an
extension to share website links, videos or events. Of the 20 groups
surveyed, 65% had 20 or less posted links (with 45% having zero group
links) and 60% had no videos or events posted within the forum.
Interestingly, in contrast, exceedingly popular throughout most of the
surveyed population was the ability to share relevant photos with, on
average, groups having nearly 1,000 photos posted by active site
members.
Examining the data collected from the group wall comments,
member postings, while generally biased towards a liberal or conservative
position, were interestingly found to be extremely balanced in their
frequency. Overall, the average partisanship of the 20-group sample was a
statistically neutral 2.79 on the five-point Likert scale (with a score of 1
indicating an extremely liberal perspective and a 5 an extremely

44
conservative one) with only one group found to fall into the “extreme”
category with a scoring of 4.5. Further examining the groups’ wall dialogue,
those comments randomly selected for the current effort were not found to
be overly informative but rather seen to express strongly held perspectives.
On average, posts were both consistently opinionated and strongly worded
with mean scores tabulated at 1.54 and 4.01 respectively (1 indicating an
extremely opinionated comment and 5 a solely fact based one and 1
indicating a weakly worded comment and 5 a strongly worded one).
Finally, group wall comments were also not seen to be excessively verbose
with a mean comment length of 3.19 on the five-point Likert scale indicating
most comments fell within the 30 to 50-word range.
Table IV: Group Comment Analysis

45
Chapter VII: Analysis
After a thorough analysis of the data collected for the current study, it
has become apparent that the feared outcome of cyber-balkanization
resulting from the political use of social networking sites has not been
proven. To the contrary, the data emerging from the content analysis
strongly suggests that online communities such as Facebook may be
poised to become the next evolutionary step in deliberative democracy, and
bring political discourse to a new generation through a medium they find
convenient and comfortable. With hundreds of sites and thousands of tools
that can be employed to help individuals share their viewpoints and
opinions on matters ranging from national security to the finer points of
healthcare reform, the current research stands as a clear testament to the
ultimately positive impact social networking platforms can and already have
begun to have on political discussion within the public sphere.
Although, as previously outlined, many in academia have suggested
that the political utilization of the Internet will result in its balkanization as
disparate groups organize and separate themselves along ideological
boundaries, within the realm of online social networking, these fears have
been found to be ultimately unnecessary. As seen in the aforementioned
research, while individual user comments included in the survey were
extremely opinionated and those neutral to the topic of conversation were
few and far between, the 20 Facebook Groups themselves were

46
nonetheless populated with a fairly equal mixture of individuals representing
both sides of the ideological spectrum. As a result, while individual users
are less than politically neutral, the current research illustrates how
frequently these users are coming together with their “ideological
opponents” to discuss issues of mutual importance. Far from distancing
themselves from one another, these individuals are utilizing the platform of
social media to broaden their political awareness in a manner that can, in
turn, help them to develop their own political frameworks and strengthen
democratic dialogue.
Disconcertingly, however, the results of the current study also served
to confirm the findings of Feezell et. al.’s 2009 research “that political
(social media) group users often do not share much new information” when
interacting in these forums (Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero, 2009, p. 14).
While the groups are a source of considerable debate and discourse
between ideologically dissimilar individuals, copious amounts of facts or
supportive evidence substantiating the claims being made by users was
noticeably lacking. With the 200 comments included in the current study
continually found to be more heavily opinion, as opposed to factual, based,
it remains unclear the extent to which individuals truly began to absorb and
understand the factual underpinnings surrounding their opponents’ outlook.
Although the current research has shown conclusively that individuals from
different ideological perspectives are beginning to interact with one another

47
via social media sites and that cyber-balkanization is not a likely outcome of
this medium, future research should aim to understand the ultimate impact
that these interactions are having on the surveyed population and if they
are producing further positive outcomes outside of creating mere familiarity
with the oppositions’ opinion-based perspectives.
Another interesting facet of online political discussion within the
confines of social media to emerge after the content analysis was the
relative brevity of individual users’ comments. In the past, as seen in
Chapter III, political debate generally took place during fairly robust periods
of time in common public areas such as town squares and coffeehouses.
With each generation, however, the utilization of technology has helped
individuals to more quickly and easily express their political perspectives.
Today, this evolution has taken its next successive, and perhaps logical,
leap forward in the form of social media.
Overall, during the current research, those users’ comments
included for analysis fell on average between 30 and 50 words total. Seen
to reflect users’ ever-increasing desire for and embrace of instantaneous
communication, these brief blasts enable users to quickly “fire” short bursts
of commentary towards one another and, in essence, recreate the
“coffeehouse-style dialogue” outside the normal confines of time and space.
Even though some may deride this short-form communication as more of a
degradation, rather than evolution, of political discourse, this back-and-forth

48
discussion, while short, in many ways recreates face-to-face conversation
more precisely than any other form of technologically mediated exchange
(from the printed word to the television) that has come before it. While, on
average, perhaps less precise and verbose than other modes of political
communication, social media is nevertheless harnessing the power of
technology to allow members the opportunity to interact with others whom,
due to a variety of reasons not the least of which geography, they might not
have otherwise met in a manner that is both time and resource efficient.
Looking forward to future research in the realm of social media and
politics, one facet of the present work that will likely prove a fruitful area for
further study is that which examined users’ preferences for the feature sets
of social media sites. In general, the 20 groups included for the study
showed an overwhelming preference for the “Photos” tool that enables the
sharing of relevant pictures (the average group having some 985 posted
photos) with other group members. Interestingly, while this tool was
exceedingly popular, others that allow users to share links, video clips and
event invitations with one another were rarely utilized. While these features
appear as easy or easier to employ than the “Photos” application, it remains
unclear why these tools continue to remain so relatively unpopular. Further
research into this question utilizing a field survey or series of user focus
groups could reveal key insight into the overall preferences of users when
discussing topics of a political nature via social media and help those in

49
academia to more accurately predict the medium’s future evolutionary
progression.

50
Chapter VIII: Conclusion
Ask a stranger passing down the street a decade ago to name his or
her favorite social media site and he/she likely would have given you a
reaction similar to that had you been asking when the last time they had
visited the Moon. Today, social media sites have become an immensely
important part of many individuals’ daily lives. Originally intended to help
users merely stay connected with their “real world” networks through the
medium of cyberspace, sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have
now quickly evolved into tools that facilitate the creation of new virtual
friendships while also enabling individuals to engage in a variety of other
activities with a relative ease the likes of which has never before been
possible.
Recently, in addition to their role as “friendship facilitators,” social
networking sites are also being utilized by individuals seeking an open
forum to discuss pertinent political matters they find of priority or interest.
Ranging in topics from the 2008 Presidential Election to the conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan, these forums have evolved into important “virtual town
halls” where individuals from around the corner and across the globe are
now coming together to collaborate and engage with one another on the
pressing issues of the day. With hundreds of sites offering millions of
different topical options for discussion, these user forums are quickly being

51
recognized in academia as a vitally important area for the future of political
discussion in the 21
st
century.
The research conducted during the current study was aimed at
understanding and articulating the extent, if any, to which cyber-
balkanization has begun to influence the rapidly expanding market of social
media. Though since the early dawn of the Internet in the 1980s many
scholars have detailed various rationales as to why or why not the
phenomenon of cyber-balkanization is a likely outcome of protracted
Internet use, to date, little research has been conducted on this
phenomenon’s potential effects within the realm of social media. After
surveying 20 randomly selected Facebook groups and 200 similarly chosen
Facebook user comments, content analyses were performed on the data to
help facilitate an answer to this research question. Overall, while support
for the cyber-balkanization theory within the domain of social media was not
found, resulting survey data suggesting that new media sites such as
Facebook may be helping to facilitate and expand democratic dialogue by
creating shared virtual spaces for the discussion of politically sensitive
topics was extremely encouraging.
Though many pessimistic scholars have argued at great lengths as
to the unfortunate but seemingly inevitable rise of cyber-balkanization, at
these early and formative stages of social media, the positive social change
that these sites have begun to establish in a relatively short period of time is

52
impressive. Transforming democratic dialogue in the 21
st
century, social
media sites are today helping individuals bridge temporal and geographic
boundaries that existed and served to block political discussion in previous
eras with relative ease. Outside of merely helping users overcome these
restrictions, perhaps even more important is the true diversity of these
interactions. While it would nonetheless have been noteworthy if
ideologically similar interactions were found to dominate the social media
sphere, the revelation of a truly diverse dialogue developing between
politically dissimilar parties speaks volumes of this medium and its potential
to further expand the depth and breadth of political discussion in
cyberspace.
If the results of the current study are any indication of the future of
social media, its days ahead appear quite bright. Helping individuals
organize themselves into cyber-communities where discussions and topics
of almost every shape and size have the potential to flourish and be
explored, social media, once thought to be a mere fad in the technological
progression of the Internet, has slowly begun to emerge and transform the
political landscape of the United States. No longer simply reliant on face-
to-face interactions for the types of communal discussions vital to the health
of a working democratic government, Americans’ embrace of the social
media platform as a tool for debate is arguably a key and evolutionary step
in deliberative political dialogue. With the current study only having sought

53
to understand a small facet of the overall nature of these discussions and
the technology employed for their transmission, it is clear that there is
considerable room for further research on the convergence of social media
and politics and that future researchers will likely find much fertile ground in
this emerging field upon which to work.
Today the future of politics and political discussion in the United
States appears to lie with social, or so-called new, media. Benefiting from
an explosive growth rate that has transformed an outlet that began as a tool
used by friends to keep in touch into one that now serves as a virtual proxy
for the town hall forums utilized by the voters of previous eras to discuss
the issues and concerns of the day, social media has become a vibrant and
arguably vital plank in the future socio-political development of democratic
states such as the United States. Perhaps inevitably, a new technology or
advancement will supplant social media’s dominance in the public sphere
and even more fully recreate the type of face-to-face communication and
conversation of democratic debate. For now, however, social media
remains the most sophisticated medium capable of replicating these
conversations and preserving the critical role they have long played in the
United States. With the encouraging data from the current study indicating
individuals are not only converging on these sites for the purposes of
political discussion but also actively interacting with ideologically dissimilar
others, the future political ramifications for social media currently appear

54
quite positive. Although only history will determine who or what ultimately
benefits from the implementation and integration of this technology into the
political system, at the current moment one statement can ultimately be
made with undeniable fact: with the introduction of social media, the future
of politics just got a heck of a lot more interesting.

55
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60
Appendix

Data Collected During Content Analysis

61
Data Collected During Content Analysis, Continued
, Continued

62
Data Collected During Content Analysis, Continued

63
Data Collected During Content Analysis, Continued

64
Data Collected During Content Analysis, Continued

65

Data Collected During Content Analysis, Continued

66

Data Collected During Content Analysis, Continued
x

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ingenito, David, II (author)

Core Title Democracy in the 21st century: social media and politics - global village or cyber-Balkans?

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Public Relations

Publication Date 05/07/2010

Defense Date 03/30/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag cyber-Balkanization,cyber-Balkans,democracy,facebook,global village,OAI-PMH Harvest,social media,Twitter

Place Name USA (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Floto, Jennifer D. (committee chair), Kotler, Jonathan (committee member), Wang, Jian (Jay) (committee member)

Creator Email David.Ingenito@usc.edu,DIngenito@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3043

Unique identifier UC1136132

Identifier etd-Ingenito-3318 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-332637 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3043 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Ingenito-3318.pdf

Dmrecord 332637

Document Type Thesis

Rights Ingenito, David, II

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu