Echo chamber (media)

In media, an echo chamber is a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an "enclosed" system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented.

How it works

Observers of journalism in the mass media describe an echo chamber effect in media discourse.[1][2] One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form)[3] until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true.[4]

Participants in online communities may find their own opinions constantly echoed back to them, which reinforces their individual belief systems. This can create significant barriers to critical discourse within an online medium. Due to forming friendships and communities with like-minded people, this effect can also occur in real life. The echo chamber effect may also prevent individuals from noticing changes in language and culture involving groups other than their own. Regardless, the echo chamber effect reinforces one's own present world view, making it seem more correct and more universally accepted than it really is.[5] Another emerging term for this echoing and homogenizing effect on the Internet within social communities is cultural tribalism.[6]

See also

References

  1. "Moon the Messiah, and the Media Echo Chamber". Retrieved 2008-03-06.
  2. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall; Joseph N. Cappella. Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-536682-4.
  3. Parry, Robert (2006-12-28). "The GOP's $3 Bn Propaganda Organ". The Baltimore Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
  4. "SourceWatch entry on media "Echo Chamber" effect". SourceWatch. 2006-10-22. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
  5. Wallsten, Kevin (2005-09-01). "American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting". Washington, D.C.: Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. |contribution= ignored (help)
  6. Dwyer, Paul. "ICWSM’2007 Boulder, Colorado, USA." (PDF). Texas A&M University: 7. Retrieved 2008-03-06. |contribution= ignored (help)

External links

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