SoylentNews

Science of "Echo Chambers"

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:18AM   
from the hello-hello-hello dept.

aristarchus writes:

Oft times we see accusations of "group think" here on SoylentNews. Now there is some actual science on the formation and function of "echo chambers", as reported by SESYNC:

A new study from researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) and the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) demonstrates that the highly contentious debate on climate change is fueled in part by how information flows throughout policy networks.
...
"Our research shows how the echo chamber can block progress toward a political resolution on climate change. Individuals who get their information from the same sources with the same perspective may be under the impression that theirs is the dominant perspective, regardless of what the science says," said Dr. Dana R. Fisher, a professor of sociology at UMD and corresponding author who led the research.

I would guess, based on this study abstract (actual paper unfortunately behind paywall), that SoylentNews is in no danger of becoming an echo chamber, but we seem to have some refugees who are still stuck in particular bubbles.

• Re:Sure Re:Sure (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday May 28 2015, @12:45PM

  by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Thursday May 28 2015, @12:45PM (#189059) Homepage

  If you throw away reports from any institute which is tainted by being affiliated with a deliberately methodologically or statistically flawed study, and you throw away all journals which are tainted by them having published a deliberately methodologically or statistically flawed study, and you throw away all reports funded by bodies which are tainted by having funded a deliberately methodologically or statistically flawed study, then the science is remarkably scant. Incompetence and intellectual fraud has touched far too many parts of field, and it needs to clean up its act. Yes, I said the "F" word, deal with it.
  
  Publish or perish is part of the problem. Academia has become bloated and sick with gout, and (most of it) doesn't realise that yet.
  
  (Disclaimer, my company actually makes some money from the academia industry, and a small proportion of the papers that have passed through our hands are bad science. However, they are published in perfect English (that's what we do) so they sound quite erudite. It's not our job to review or reject, it's the journal's job. They're endorsing it by publishing it, we are just a pipe it passes through.)

  --
  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

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• Re:Sure (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:06PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:06PM (#189179)

  We should retract all journal articles ever written by anyone who is affiliated with any institution who has done any climate research, proposed to do any climate research, or who looks likely to want to do any kind of climate research. It is corruption all the way down. This should be done retroactively, as it is clear this "green" corruption did not occur overnight, but has been building up as a systemic problem. I have been saying for years there is a problem with the Ether Deniers. Now it is clear to me that that deliberate and methodologically flawed Michelson-Morley experiment is a widely perpetuated fraud, because I can see now that Case Western Reserve University takes money from such places as the EPA.

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