how can we deal with an echo chamber web?
We all know someone who only listens to what she wants to hear, the devoted Fox News or MSNBC viewer, a dedicated Red State or Daily Kos reader, and the periodic fire breathing comment section dragon armed with the latest string of talking points and partisan accusations. Nowadays, we’re not restricted to the same highly regulated news channels and papers. We have thousands of channels, hundreds of major blogs, and entire ecosystems of news sites. You would think that if anything, we’d be exposed to something different virtually all the time and have much more diverse viewing and reading lists, right? After all, this was the thinking behind a repeal of the Fairness Doctrine which was an FCC mandated measure to give equal time to opposing views, intended to curb propagandizing on behalf of political candidates when there were just five or six channels on everyone’s TV and people got their news from just a dozen papers. But as it turns out, we use the exact set of technologies meant to expose us to more ideas to throttle the torrent of content to what we find palatable.
While one could certainly argue that there’s great diversity of views across the web and point to sites ran by a myriad of corporations offering mainstream news reports, to forums curated by those who believe that we are all unwitting subjects of sinister Satanic aliens and demons, we can also make the argument that as the web grew and the the initial torrent of content online grew into a tsunami, it began to be corralled into cozy, uniform echo chambers connected to each other through a shared ideology. A big part of the reason why is that we’re dealing with too much data to process. Do you really read every Facebook update in your feed? Can you really look through all the 1,100+ sources Google News gives you for a top story? At some point you have to narrow the information coming to you into a manageable stream. And that’s when political biases begin to play a very significant role. Software doesn’t really care whether you’re an open-minded moderate or a partisan zealot, its only concern is to make sure that it brings you exactly what you want and nothing else. Likewise, Google and any other company offering to filter the web for you also have little care about how diverse your worldviews are and simply want to offer ads specifically customized to appeal to people with your exact preferences.
So here’s the question. Should these companies start caring? According to one paper, offering a few articles in a custom-filtered news stream does prompt some people to read something new which helps them form a more nuanced and well-rounded idea of the subject matter, exactly what one would expect after someone has read multiple viewpoints on the same issue. That doesn’t mean that the subject changed his or her opinions, just that new points were considered and factored into the thought process. Considering the furious, foaming at the mouth partisan rants across far too many sites nowadays, that alone sounds like a big step towards a more civil public discourse that leads to a small emphasis on partisan loyalty and dogmatism. However, this paper’s data set was gathered from 140 college students and the topic in question was an abstract one, with most subjects indicating they knew very little about it. Had the topic been something that hits partisan frictions rather than the transhumanist-sounding "neuro-enhancement," the results would’ve been more applicable to the context where these preference-inconsistent recommendations would matter most. We don’t know if we’d really be able to get the same students to read an article opposing their ideological stance and show at least recognition of its points, if not an outright appreciation and discussion of the opposing arguments.
So may all come down to whether you find people willing to get out of their comfort zone every once in a while, and how much their identity with a certain movement means to them. If they prize conformity and believe that a new idea is a threat rather than an opportunity to see what others thing, well-meaning inconsistencies in their filtered lists of search results and news feeds will be treated as a nuisance and ignored. If they are fine with a periodic exploration of divergent opinions, they’ll be willing to click on ideologically inconsistent matches every once in a while. Again, the goal here would be just to make sure that other opinions are not filtered out of view and the web doesn’t turn into a search engine and social media enabled collection of echo chambers where ideological dissent is met with punitive action. But it seems much more likely that we can’t do it through being sneaky with technology. That willingness has to come from the person first and foremost, and that could turn out to be either the easiest thing to change, or the hardest. Giving the open-minded a new option is more than enough, but when dealing with the most close-minded, filter-happy denizens of the web, our only recourse will be to incentivize reading ideologically opposing content. And how does one incentivize open-mindedness?
See: Schwind, C., et al. (2012). Preference-inconsistent recommendations: an effective approach for reducing confirmation bias and stimulating divergent thinking? Computers & Education, 58 (2), 787-796 DOI 10.1016…
On a more “positive” note, Facebook appears to actually be working against the echo chamber effect.
I know I’ve got a lot of acquaintances on my “friends” list and both they (from me!) and I (from them) are exposed to points of view we don’t agree with. So all is not lost :)
Perhaps it is, but as I read the study, there were a number of things that might have thrown a wrench into the findings unaccounted for, it was conducted by a Facebook employee, and trumpeted by Facebook PR. If you recall the study of Mechanical Turk done by Yelp, you know how such research tends to turn out…
Do you think the science/skeptic blogosphere is the same phenomena? Chris Mooney at least thought that science blogs turned into echo chambers.
I recall Steven Novella talking brand loyalty, identity and self-image in one of the SGU podcasts, saying that skeptics have the same psychology as other humans, and will therefore identify with certain things just like others do, and the best that could be done about it was to channel this tendency is a positive direction (he said he identified with skepticism). Do you agree?
I think Novella is right in his analysis, and that is why discussions about religions and politics tend to be such minefields, as they touch on what many people identify with. If it is part of your identity to think that capitalism is always bad or socialism is always bad, then you wont fairly evaluate arguments in favor of whatever it is you oppose.
Do you think the science/skeptic blogosphere is the same phenomena?
Not really. While a lot of science bloggers tend to agree with each other on a lot of very different topics, the points of absolute agreement lay in the interpretations of scientific facts and since science is about hard data and evidence, many conclusions about an established theory will lead to the same conclusions. You wouldn’t say that when lots of blogs agree that 5 + 5 = 10 it’s a result of groupthink and echo chamber mentalities, now would you?
As I’ve said before in an older post, skeptical bloggers tend to allow more dissenting voices in our comment sections so there’s often a debate going on when a post has a lot of comments. Having debated many readers on many posts here, I think it’s a lot of fun to discuss many sides of a controversial issue and makes for far more interesting reading material as well as a catalyst for more voices to join. And since most skeptical bloggers I know pride themselves on having an open comment policy, I would say that we have a culture that undermines a true echo chamber mentality.
Chris Mooney at least thought that science blogs turned into echo chambers.
Johnny, if you’d do me the favor of searching my posts for my opinion of Mooney along with his illustrious escapades in bashing skeptical and atheist bloggers for cash from a religious think tank and buying into falsifications because they matched his “atheists are fundamentalist fanatics in reverse” narrative, I think you’ll get a much better idea of what I think of his judgments of the scientific blogosphere than I could summarize in a reply here. Let me just put it this way, I don’t trust anything he says about skeptics and highly recommend that you don’t either.
When he says ” today’s science blogs are just echo chambers,” that’s usually code for his typical plea of “they all disagree with me so they must be victims of groupthink.” It’s kind of become his modus operandi over the last two years of so…
I recall Steven Novella talking brand loyalty, identity and self-image in one of the SGU podcasts, saying that skeptics have the same psychology as other humans…
Hard to argue about that point, it’s supported by mountains of research. You can’t just expect people to stop identifying with something by showing it’s wrong. You have to be ready to show them with what else they can identify and show why it’s better than what you’re demonstrating to be factually and/or logically incorrect.
From what I’ve seen, sci.bloggers seem to set up their blogs in order to be challenged. Having a good solid argument is the reward for posting. (The occasional praise, the thankyouforposting, is the health recharge pack to get through the bad wobbly arguments.)
Anti-sci blogs (both left and right) seem to be set up precisely in order to create the echo-chamber, to validate the poster’s view and reinforce the fan-base. Dissent is not challenged, it’s angrily excluded.
“Chris Mooney at least thought that science blogs turned into echo chambers.”
Since Chris Mooney really really doesn’t like being challenged, this is something of a projection.
“You wouldn’t say that when lots of blogs agree that 5 + 5 = 10 it’s a result of groupthink and echo chamber mentalities, now would you? … And since most skeptical bloggers I know pride themselves on having an open comment policy, I would say that we have a culture that undermines a true echo chamber mentality.”
These are all good points. Facts are facts, and it’s usually religious forums that have strict policies on what may be asked (that is, the questions must not be too critical and the replies given must be accepted, no matter how much they may be lacking). Fair enough.
“Johnny, if you’d do me the favor of searching my posts for my opinion of Mooney along with his illustrious escapades…”
Yes, I know that he is into dubious business, but I didn’t know that he would recieve a mometary profit for his little “scholarship”. That’s actually new to me, but it puts his behavior in a much clearer light.
Well, I don’t think this blog is an echo-chamber. I’m an atheist/religious anarchist occultist who is fascinated with the idea of the Singularity and transhumanism, who holds a degree in literary criticism, and a passion for science and critical thinking. I don’t always agree with Greg, but I think he’s brilliant, and this is my favorite blog of all time, and it helps me keep a more balanced perspective. It is important for me to keep my knowledge and views in check with rational thought, and to seek truth and knowledge over comfortable fallacy. So, there is some incentive, but I think this is a timeless battle of ignorance versus intellectual curiosity.
I’ve found that my music buddies are the most open to listening to opposing opinions, whether they agree with said opinions or not.
It seems once we can agree to disagree on what music we like, that mentality spreads to other aspects of life. It’s kinda funny when someone you know as somewhat of an indie snob admits to a soft spot for a cheesy pop star. But it helps if you at least learned to agree to disagree about your favorite indie bands in the first place. Then it’s not so much “your taste sucks” as it becomes “hah, I have a fave guilty pleasure band, too.”
It may never work for politics or religion, but, hey, it’s worth a shot. Play more music. Get people talking. Get ‘em to know each other that way, and then open ‘em up to other subjects.
Music: the universal language.