Investigation of echo chamber effect on common social problems in social media circulation: The example of Twitter

The behavior of searching, acquiring and sharing knowledge has been transformed with media and communication technologies in the journey of humanity from the first periods to the present day. People's behavior of acquiring information gives clues about whether the environment in which information is obtained contains diversity. In the process of accessing and sharing information, the fact that individuals accept only those thoughts that are similar to their own thoughts and avoid opposing ideas and differences of opinion is explained by the echo chamber effect. The aim of this study is to investigate the existence of an echo chamber effect on the behaviorsof people when obtaining and sharing information in online communication environments. Within the scope of this study, it was examined to determine the topics that users actively participate in, to determine the most interacted account types, to learn how users approach the types of content they find suspicious and to determine the type of network structure. In the study, quantitative and qualitative methods were used. As a technique within the scope of quantitative research methods, participants were asked closed-ended questions about the network structure, the accounts interacted with, attitudes towards suspicious news content and the structure of Twitter. In the survey, the top three topics in which users participated most actively were determined and the shares made about these topics were examined by content analysis. In the results of the survey, the participants stated that they could learn different information from the accounts they followed and that they researched the accuracy of a news from different sources. In the content analysis, when the characteristics of the emerging social relationship networks belonging to the three selected topics were examined, it was seen that similar thinkers came together and high homophilia was seen. The need to verify the news content encountered had no relation to the time spent on Twitter. It was determined that there was a significant relationship between the reliance on the accuracy of a content and the recognition of the accounts sharing the contents. Social groups, academics, and family/friend-acquaintances are the accounts where survey participants interact the most on Twitter. The opinion leaders identified by content analysis are well-known people.