Echo chamber (media)

An echo chamber is "an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own."[1]

In news media and social media, an echo chamber is an environment or ecosystem in which participants encounter beliefs that amplify or reinforce their preexisting beliefs by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.[2][3][4] An echo chamber circulates existing views without encountering opposing views, potentially resulting in confirmation bias. Echo chambers may increase social and political polarization and extremism.[5] On social media, it is thought that echo chambers limit exposure to diverse perspectives, and favor and reinforce presupposed narratives and ideologies.[4][6]

The term is a metaphor based on an acoustic echo chamber, in which sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure. Another emerging term for this echoing and homogenizing effect within social-media communities on the Internet is neotribalism.

Many scholars note the effects that echo chambers can have on citizens' stances and viewpoints, and specifically implications has for politics.[7] However, some studies have suggested that the effects of echo chambers are weaker than often assumed.[8]

  1. ^ "echo-chamber noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com". www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
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  4. ^ a b Cinelli, Matteo; De Francisci Morales, Gianmarco; Galeazzi, Alessandro; Quattrociocchi, Walter; Starnini, Michele (23 February 2021). "The echo chamber effect on social media". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (9). Bibcode:2021PNAS..11823301C. doi:10.1073/pnas.2023301118. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 7936330. PMID 33622786.
  5. ^ Barberá, Pablo, et al. (21 August 2015). "Tweeting from left to right: Is online political communication more than an echo chamber?". Psychological Science. 26.10: 1531-1542. doi:10.1177/0956797615594620
  6. ^ Currin, Christopher Brian; Vera, Sebastián Vallejo; Khaledi-Nasab, Ali (2 June 2022). "Depolarization of echo chambers by random dynamical nudge". Scientific Reports. 12 (1): 9234. arXiv:2101.04079. Bibcode:2022NatSR..12.9234C. doi:10.1038/s41598-022-12494-w. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 9163087. PMID 35654942.
  7. ^ Unver, H. Akin (2017). "Politics of Automation, Attention, and Engagement". Journal of International Affairs. 71 (1): 127–146. ISSN 0022-197X. JSTOR 26494368.
  8. ^ Gentzkow, Matthew; Shapiro, Jesse M. (November 2011). "Ideological Segregation Online and Offline *" (PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 126 (4): 1799–1839. doi:10.1093/qje/qjr044. hdl:1811/52901. ISSN 0033-5533. S2CID 9303073.