wow, thanks a lot for covering this - let me just emphasize that I'd regard this preprint as a conceptual perspective / review article that aims to act as a synthesis if existing evidence (the analysis of the GLES data serves mostly as another empirical illustration)

Absolutely, I think this paper connects really well to, for example, your work with Claire Robertson

Thanks! That's great to hear - and makes me curious to hear more about your project.

Big thanks to my fantastic coauthors: Will Schulz @small-schulz.bsky.social, Ralph Hertwig @arc-mpib.bsky.social , David Lazer @davidlazer.bsky.social and Sebastian Stier @sebstier.bsky.social !

Feedback very welcome! Now read, share, cite 😊

Finally, we move beyond social media research and discuss potential consequences of the production-consumption gap, which results in a remarkable visibility gap, for public opinion more broadly.

We then discuss methodological challenges this production-consumption gap poses for us, social media researchers, and derive implications for sampling, study design and inference.

Focusing on political content on social media, we discuss existing evidence on predictors and consequences of this production-consumption gap.

One phenomenon that is remarkably consistent across platforms, time and contexts: most people lurk, read along, and never really post while a small minority is very active, and very visible — a.k.a. the production-consumption gap.

Unfortunately not but (almost) all references are in English

Here are some of the 🔑 findings:

- Legislators across the 12 countries DO follow researchers but seldom visibly engage.

*Also, most of their engagement is with social scientists.