One of many high considerations in relation to the harms of social media and political polarization in america is the concern of echo chambers or folks working in media bubbles. If individuals are solely listening to opinions they already agree with or seeing tales that align with their worldview, they might turn out to be extra entrenched of their beliefs, whether or not or not their beliefs mirror the actual world. They could additionally turn out to be simpler to control and extra excessive.
Curiously, analysis largely reveals the overwhelming majority of individuals don’t inhabit completely sealed-off echo chambers. It’s been discovered that solely about 4 p.c of individuals function in on-line echo chambers, and most individuals on Twitter, for instance, don’t comply with any political accounts. Primarily, most individuals aren’t following politics, and lots of people who do are getting at the least a bit bit of knowledge from completely different sides of the political spectrum. That mentioned, echo chambers and media bubbles are a problem as a result of they can radicalize folks, negatively have an effect on the individuals who inhabit them, and deform the broader political panorama.
“The subset of the inhabitants that does devour hyper-partisan media and inhabit echo chambers on social platforms could be very consequential,” says Magdalena Wojcieszak, a professor of communication on the College of California, Davis. “They’re extra politically , extra participatory, extra strongly partisan, and extra polarized. Due to all these items, they’re extra probably to participate in politics.”
Wojcieszak says as a result of these individuals are so politically concerned, they’ve a disproportionate affect on American politics. They’re usually the loudest voices within the room. She says people who find themselves politically energetic prefer to have their views confirmed, to allow them to find yourself following accounts that align with their views and find yourself in echo chambers. Social media makes it simpler to seek out individuals who align with them politically, and algorithms usually feed them the content material they’re going to love. All of this may finally result in folks happening rabbit holes and changing into extra politically excessive.
“It makes you extra excessive or polarized. It reinforces your attitudes. It additionally reinforces your sense of belonging to this group, and it reinforces your negativity and hostility towards different teams,” Wojcieszak says. “You assume you’re the respectable one, the nice one, the virtuous one. The others are evil.”
Folks can begin to imagine they’re the one ones with the details and that the opposite facet is illegitimate. (Maybe you’ve seen this in an individual who paid tens of billions of {dollars} for a social media firm not way back.) Wojcieszak says the method of individuals changing into radicalized can begin with them having only a few political beliefs in widespread with those that are extra excessive than they’re. Having just a few stances that align with these excessive actors on-line could be the snare that pulls them into the rabbit gap.
“As a way to enter that means of this particular person psychological and algorithmic affirmation, you do must have some extent of susceptibility to some type of narratives from the left or the correct,” Wojcieszak says. “If there are some social or political points by which you could have some views, that may begin the method.”