Center-Left and Right-Wing News, YouTube, and Twitter as Key Connectors in the Social Media System

Extending research on technological affordances and user practices, this article treats social media as a system comprised of differentiated yet interconnected platforms and shaped by users’ information sharing practices. Specifically, hyperlinks — generated through cross-platform and cross-media information sharing — facilitate information diffusion and reveal major connectors in the social media system. Analyzing the linking patterns of 186 platforms with two large-scale datasets on prominent social and political issues in the U.S., we find the leading role of cross-media sharing, with center-left and right-wing news outlets serving as major pathways of system-wide information flow. Also, YouTube and Twitter emerge as hubs in the social media system via cross-platform sharing. Integrating established theoretical perspectives and providing robust quantitative descriptions, this study advances social media research and introduces a system-of-information perspective for addressing social-media-related communication challenges.