53

Digital social networks constitute a mirage for scholarship. While a necessary condition of scholarly research is the availability of a diverse range of information, using digital social networks to gain access to sources can limit informational plurality. As a result of their homophilous functioning, there is not much interplay of content on social media. In concretizing, on a large scale, both the two-step flow of communication model and the figure of the opinion leader, online social media are platforms within which users-receivers get their information from other members of their own social networks. Receiving information through an opinion leader changes how it is grasped. Without the different facets of a piece of information, it is difficult to attain a scholarly perspective, because this requires in-depth study and a comparison of sources. Only the personal reconstruction of a variety of sources can restore the heterogeneity that scholarship demands.