The latest news on this front comes from a really interesting article on Science Daily about a new University of Missouri-Columbia study:

With the growing popularity of social media, Twitter has become a prominent place to voice opinions on both ends of the political spectrum. With the ability to follow those who only argue one side, voices of people who are in the middle, disinterested in politics or use social media solely for entertainment purposes might be getting drowned out amidst the political noise.

Michael Kearney, an assistant professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, found that while partisan users form highly partisan social networks on Twitter, moderate users — or those less politically engaged — continue to avoid politics, potentially creating an important void on social media.

“We are not necessarily getting farther and farther apart — it’s just the people in the middle are becoming more quiet and withdrawn,” Kearney said. “If you fail to consider all the people in the middle who do not care about politics as much, it seems like there is a more clear division when there is not, so social media might be artificially creating this sense that we are becoming more polarized.”

See full story here. The study’s author Michael Wayne Kearney published the work at the New Media & Society journal with the following title: “Analyzing change in network polarization”.