Link:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/18/17989856/twitter-polarization-echo-chambers-social-media
This story suggests a straightforward solution: If only we crossed the informational aisle, if only the liberals would watch a bit of Fox and the conservatives would spend some time with Rachel Maddow, we would realize the other side is more like us than we thought, that they make some good points too, and our enmity and polarization would ebb.
Beginning in October 2017, a group of political scientists and sociologists decided to test this theory. In the largest study of its kind ever conducted, they paid 1,220 regular Twitter users who identified as either Democrats or Republicans to follow a bot retweeting elected officials, media figures, and opinion leaders from the other side. The participants took regular surveys asking about their views on 10 issues ranging from immigration to government waste to corporate profits to LGBTQ rights. Those surveys — this will be important later — let them mark their view on a 7-point scale ranging from most conservative to most liberal.
The researchers were testing the collision between two popular models. In one, “contact between opposing groups can challenge stereotypes that develop in the absence of positive interactions between them.” In the other, “exposure to those with opposing political views may create backfire effects that exacerbate political polarization.”
The backfire theorists won the day. The results of the month-long exposure to popular, authoritative voices from the other side of the aisle was an increase in issue-based polarization. “We find that Republicans who followed a liberal Twitter bot became substantially more conservative posttreatment,” write the authors. “Democrats exhibited slight increases in liberal attitudes after following a conservative Twitter bot, although these effects are not statistically significant.”
There is a lot more info at the link. This is just a quick summary to get you interested.