Abstract
News recommender systems provide a technological architecture that helps shaping public discourse. Following a normative approach to news recommender system design, we test utility and external effects of a diversity-aware news recommender algorithm. In an experimental study using a custom-built news app, we show that diversity-optimized recommendations (1) perform similar to methods optimizing for user preferences regarding user utility, (2) that diverse news recommendations are related to a higher tolerance for opposing views, especially for politically conservative users, and (3) that diverse news recommender systems may nudge users towards preferring news with differing or even opposing views. We conclude that diverse news recommendations can have a depolarizing capacity for democratic societies.
| Item Type: | Journal Article, refereed, original work |
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| Communities & Collections: | 03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Informatics
06 Faculty of Arts > Department of Communication and Media Research
08 Research Priority Programs > Digital Society Initiative |
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| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 000 Computer science, knowledge & systems
070 News media, journalism & publishing |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Algorithmic curation, ethics, journalism, political polarization, public sphere, recommender systems, user preferences |
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| Scope: | Discipline-based scholarship (basic research) |
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| Language: | English |
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| Date: | 26 November 2022 |
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| Deposited On: | 18 Mar 2022 07:02 |
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| Last Modified: | 18 Mar 2025 04:35 |
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| Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
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| ISSN: | 2167-0811 |
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| OA Status: | Hybrid |
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| Free access at: | Publisher DOI. An embargo period may apply. |
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| Publisher DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.2021804 |
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| Other Identification Number: | merlin-id:22084 |
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| Project Information: | - Funder: UZH Digital Society Initiative under a Grant of the DSI Excellence Program
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- Funder: Hasler Foundation under a Grant on Political News Diversity
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Heitz, Lucien