Despite any concerns with this particular article, at least three other studies
using individual-level data yield results pointing in the same direction. Heatherly,
Lu, and Lee (2017) ﬁnd that individuals who engage in cross-cutting discussion
on social media report lower levels of political polarization. Barberá (2015) ﬁnds
that individuals in ideologically diverse Twitter networks tend to moderate their
ideological positions over time. Using survey data from twenty-eight European
countries, Ngyuen and Vu (2019) ﬁnd that citizens who consume political news
through social media sites are not more polarized than those who rely on other
sources. Other studies, on the other hand, do suggest that exposure to political
information through social media could have polarizing effects. Bail et al. (2018)
show that cross-cutting exposure to political messages from elites can increase
polarization. Using an innovative research design that maximizes internal and
Social_Media_and_Democracy