Funding for Dr. Ruben Bach's new project on the emergence of filter bubbles and echo chambers

The Baden-Württemberg Stiftung has granted funding for Dr. Ruben Bach’s project B1.2024 “Filter Bubbles, Alternative News and Political Polarization” within the framework of their elite programme for postdocs.

This project investigates whether social media and search engines lead to homogeneous news diets, how and where citizens are exposed to alternative media and factually dubious content. Moreover, it analyses the consequences of homogeneous news use and alternative media for citizens’ trust in democracy, political institutions and the media. It uses a combination of survey data and web-tracking data that allow for the unfiltered observation of users’ news exposure on a fine-grained level.

(January 2021)