Suchergebnisse

Sociological studies of atheism have tended to coalesce around three primary themes: stigma, identity, and community. To date, however, no studies have taken a reflexive approach to these themes or applied them in the field to test their analytical utility as well as their relations in contemporary atheist experience. This study employs a mixed-methods approach that includes in-depth interviews (n = 19), participant observation, and one survey administered to two atheist groups, one local (n = 151) and one national (n = 456). Ethnographic findings confirm the central role of stigma, identity, and community in atheist experience and emphasize their nestedness in one another. Survey results find that atheist affiliates in both national and local groups rate political activism as more important than social reasons in motivating them to affiliate, while local affiliates rated social reasons significantly higher than national affiliates rated social reasons. Suggestions for future research include consideration of these themes' connectedness in subsequent analyses and further inquiry into the functional divergences between local and national atheist organizations.

Social media sites are often blamed for exacerbating political polarization by creating "echo chambers" that prevent people from being exposed to information that contradicts their preexisting beliefs. We conducted a field experiment that offered a large group of Democrats and Republicans financial compensation to follow bots that retweeted messages by elected officials and opinion leaders with opposing political views. Republican participants expressed substantially more conservative views after following a liberal Twitter bot, whereas Democrats' attitudes became slightly more liberal after following a conservative Twitter bot—although this effect was not statistically significant. Despite several limitations, this study has important implications for the emerging field of computational social science and ongoing efforts to reduce political polarization online.