Hierarchical barriers: how media-flow networks reproduce inequality on X

Moving beyond content-based accounts, this study examines how media organizations’ relational interactions on X (formerly Twitter) allocate relational visibility across country-status tiers. We build a directed media-flow network from the 2022 interactions of 223 media outlets in 33 countries and 15,613 geolocated accounts they retweeted, replied to, or quoted. Combining social network analysis approaches and Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs), we identify a network pattern that we term hierarchical barriers to relational visibility flow. These barriers describe a structure in which relational visibility circulates strongly within national and country-status boundaries, while upward relational uptake from lower country-status sources into higher-status media visibility circuits remains limited and conditional. ERGM results show that these barriers are associated with multi-level homophily and WS-status-based asymmetry, with higher-country-status accounts more likely to occupy source positions. In the relatively rare cross-country ties that do emerge, contra-flow remains scarce and takes the form of selective permeability, occurring only under specific network-position conditions. Overall, the study shows how repeated organizational interaction on X organizes country-status-based asymmetries in relational visibility, making asymmetric permeability across media visibility circuits a central concern for understanding platformed digital inequality.