Echo Chambers, Explained

today it feels like individuals simply choose the reality they wish to exist within information news and facts are less of a meal and more of a buffet can take what we want back to our tables ignore the rest and proceed through our lives it seems the only thing we could all agree on is somehow that so-called Echo Chambers are bad this alone is strange because we can't agree on who is actually in an echo chamber to group a group b is the guilty party to group b group a is instead the easiest diagnosis here is that people simply do not hear opinions from an opposing side but that is in fact a completely different phenomenon than what is occurring today as well trodden as this subject may seem we have a fundamental misunder understanding of echo Chambers media literacy will be an important piece of this puzzle as will a third point one more extraordinary in which the true aggressors seem to go un accused T NN is a professor at the University of Utah his research largely focuses on how social structures manipulate rationality and information processing in 2020 he published a paper called Echo Chambers and epistemic Bubbles by grasping the distinction between these two phenomena we can get closer to a full understanding of true Echo Chambers by nin's estimation many people use the term Echo chamber when they are in fact discussing epistemic bubbles although it may feel like an exercise in semantics the distinction between epistemic Bubbles and Echo Chambers matters a lot by understanding our structures and systems of knowledge we are better equipped to uncover their shortcomings and identify if we are in fact in an echo chamber of course the more we understand something the easier it then becomes to dismantle now one thing we need to keep in mind is the Reliance on third parties for information this is not a bad thing at all in fact this Reliance is necessary our world is set up in a way which requires us to lean on outside sources for knowledge there's just too much info in the world and despite what internet rabbit holes may lead us to believe a given individual is not a subject matter expert in well almost anything we have to rely on third parties we know it is bad to smoke cigarettes not because we are experts on the human respiratory system instead those people who are have done the research and can tell us this is true we know to avoid drinking bleach not because we are experts on toxicology but instead the people who are have informed us not to drink bleach we don't know exercise is good because we're all sports scientists we don't know our brakes stop our cars because we're all expert mechanics etc etc these types of structures aren't always bad either as NN points out if you were an anti-nazi in Nazi Germany you would be correct to exist within an anti-nazi echo chamber you would do well to reject the prevailing consensus based solely on the fact that it was so prevalent the problem occurs when we begin to manipulate and exploit these Concepts as NN says an epistemic bubble is a social structure which excludes relevant information and voices through Omission that is to say these bubbles lack aggression or even ill intent we stay in touch with our friends who have similar worldviews to ours we draw from similar news sources as people we like or respect this gives us a filtered sort of worldview which omits contrary views and artificially inflates our own self-confidence epistemic bubbles are bad but they are not malicious more likely they are just a negative side effect of the way we are required to interface with the world thankfully epistemic bubbles are easy to break down in these bubbles people do not actively Crusade against other opinions so as we introduce new opinions we find a population that is open into them by injecting new ideas into epistemic bubbles We have basically solved the problem would argue though that epistemic bubbles are pretty rare especially in online discourse more common are Echo Chambers in an echo chamber relevant opposing voices are actively discredited these structures work by intentionally isolating members from outside sources the result is an inflated dependence on Insider authority figures in rejecting all out outside sources of information we have what can best be described as cult-like Behavior there is one leader or a Cadre of leaders who all have the ultimate knowledge and keys to a so described truth or reality Echo Chambers present a number of self-strengthening traits which make them almost impossible to untangle the first is inside language Echo Chambers employ their own sort of slang people who know or understand a certain set of words are insiders and those who reject this language are Outsiders this is a simple tactic but this mounting distance from Outsiders then produces another Hallmark of the echo chamber disagreement reinforcement this mechanism is the armor that Echo Chambers so effectively wear the leader of an echo chamber tells its members that the rest of the world hates the group for knowing some truth and that Outsiders will label in members as crazy cultish or lunatics the leader says that Outsiders will tell the Echo chain that they are incorrect this is a clever trick because when one takes false beliefs into the world the world will absolutely confront an individual on those grounds but with the disagreement reinforcement mechanism those confrontations serve only to strengthen in members faith in their leaders he told me you would say that so he must be smart credible correct Etc this is why factual information does basically nothing to shatter Echo Chambers those within the chamber Chambers are already prepared to hear and reject information more to the point individuals are prepared in a way that opposition just galvanizes their belief in the Echo chamber so we have the self-sustaining nature of these structures each time Outsiders try to deploy factual information they just strengthen the barrier between the echo chamber and outside reality attempts to break them down only fortify their walls Echo Chambers exist as perversions of a reasonable knowledge system they disregard the information and instead Place emphasis on the authority figure conversely it is not the opposing facts which in- members reject but often the people who are presenting them when we discuss the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen those who believe this often reject not the material facts at hand but CNN NBC Reuters or whoever is speaking them in a healthy epistemic Community as NN says there is an upper ceiling on The credibility of any individual if our plumber tells us we need a new toilet we believe him if our plumber tells us that aliens are coming from Mars and sabotaging our toilet while we sleep not so much say we applied an echo chamber to the aforementioned situation we would be perfectly happy to accept this bizarre alien-based diagnosis this phenomenon is called Runaway Credence the structure of echo Chambers allows not fact to to reign supreme but instead the individual delivering information because trust is not in information information alone cannot break down an echo chamber especially when we consider the disagreement reinforcement mechanism these solutions to Echo Chambers are surely complex disperate and would take years to implement the contributing factors to the phenomenon equally so I can't claim to be an expert on any of these things social media algorithms a Justified mistrust in our government human psychology to name a few but I do think I'm in a position to speak about one of the many keys that is media literacy so in an effort to do my part which is of course all that I can do we must engage in a real conversation about understanding consuming and producing media what is media literacy educator Elizabeth Toman put it well when she said media literacy is the ability to create personal meaning from verbal and visual symbols we take in every day it's the ability to choose and select the ability to challenge and question the ability to be conscious about what is going on around us and not be passive and vulnerable this is not a new conversation in 1933 levas and Thompson proposed teaching UK students how to distinguish between forms of popular culture this signified a protectionist approach the idea was to promote higher forms of culture culture to combat poor information distributed through the widespread availability of mass printing in the 1970s the American government and private sectors mirrored this protectionism and financially supported media literacy education in schools this was done through a CVS or a critical viewing skills curricula when we look into the programs and people who led them we see a rather underfunded halfhazard and disappointing implementation indeed these media literacy programs never really became more than a passing fad the 9s also saw a peace meal Resurgence in media literacy education but again to no real significant end today Scholars Point largely to the movement's protectionist approach for its failure American media literacy education painted the Advent of Television broadly as a danger to young people without highlighting the medium's tremendous educational upsides as well all of these half-hearted attempts are partly to blame for our current predic but I would also suggest that our Collective ideas about media literacy have remained the same while media itself has changed drastically in the past media had the power to change culture but it existed outside of culture many people my age and older can remember times when people with differing media diets got along quite magnanimously however now media is culture if you consume Fox News or CNN or BBC that alone is a cultural signifier unfortunately things like Twitter follows say something very real and meaningful about you as a person the internet fundamentally changed our media landscape while our ideas about media literacy really have remained stagnant Troublesome though it is to admit and we will discuss this later the modern citizen must be New Media literate to participate responsibly in our society but before we can understand a framework for new media literacy we must understand and the New Media landscape traditional mediums still exist of course and they still have some influence but it is reasonable to declare that modern media is largely on the internet that is Web 2. 0 before our current ERA of internet technology we existed with something called Web 1. 0 this early type of internet technology is often described as read only there was very little participation from the user instead web 1.

0 was basically just a new way to distribute information the user could consume digital formats communicate onetoone through email and chat rooms and do basic creative work however these users could not really participate on mass in Internet content Creation in the early 2000s this began to change social networking sites began to appear comment sections likes favorites and reposts by users became cornerstones of the online experience this is Web 2. 0 where we exist today the read only internet is dead it is now easy for a user to make their voice heard to adopt identities through online communities and to participate in the construction of ideas themselves this is in many ways a good thing our online diet is not monopolized by large corporations nor do we have the problem of bad faith Gatekeepers although the idea of meritocracy is perhaps Fantastical Web 2. 0 has made creative work into something much closer to this utopian ideal individuals can contribute Works to communities which are receptive to them this has developed strong incentives for Creative expression we can publish things to people who very well may like them thus encouraging more people to create more things freely great ideas are no longer Shackled by technical knowledge we have seen movement within the Arts music and culture like never before often in positive ways however Web 2.

0 has had immense negative impacts on our information culture within web 1. 0 users were generally consumers of media produced by experts it was akin to the traditional publishing environment but in 2. 0 the non-expert consumers are also the producers users can collectively publish and Echo any bit of information which they find acceptable regardless of how subject matter experts may feel about the material the result has been clear as day Web 2.

0 is so Rife with misinformation published by unqualified individuals that attempting to weed through the true and untrue is a seemingly impossible task furthermore as 2. 0 users can develop social communities around this information media has become more than a mover of culture it is again culture itself T Newan has also published a small piece on a new phenomenon which has emerged with Web 2. 0 that is the idea of pornography nin describes pornography as this an image is sexual pornography when we use it for immediate gratification while avoiding the complexities of actual sexual relationships like physical intimacy emotional connection and romantic interaction as our identities become wrapped up in online media so has emerged a new version of pornography consider food porn these are images of delicious food we engage with without worrying about the labor of cooking the effects of calorie or nutritional intake or the availability of ingredients themselves well we now have outrage porn this is basically information we engage with for emotional stimulation while avoiding the Practical realities of that information itself this news story makes you feel X and it is that feeling which we pursue rather than the fact fiction bias or subtext of the information presented when points to the traditional problem with sexual pornography it portrays sex in wildly unrealistic terms and consumers are at risk to export those terms into real sex so too is the risk with outrage pornography it colors how we perceive the world around us in a way that is emblematic of failed media literacy so the question is then how do we update our version of media literacy to meet a new Modern Standard generally pretty picky about sponsorship in these videos but ground news is a great tool to help with media literacy news outlets come with their own swarm of subtextual issues bias corporate ownership even sheer factuality ground news is a website and app that can help you sort through all of these it gathers articles from over 50,000 sources so you can compare how different news outlets are reporting the same story it has a suite of tools that detect political bias reliability and even who funds A given news Outlet these ratings are all backed by Independent News monitoring organizations so you can trust that ground news itself isn't just another thing you need to decode my favorite features is ground news ownership tool big media conglomerates control the news and they shape the world we live in with the ownership tool you can see who owns the news you are consuming it even breaks down what specific media conglomerates are publishing specific stories if a news story is from an individual a government or an independent publication ground News tells you that too it's so important to understand understand who is making money off the news you're consuming for example the EPA will be awarding $4.