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:Rationale of Paper Re:Rationale of Paper (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:54PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:54PM (#189712)

  Maybe the real question is why such a tactic on the part of petrochemical corporations can actually work, how it is that normal people can be snookered into an echo chamber.

  Well the answer to that is pretty obvious and even fairly well researched. A large proportion of the population, those normally self-identifying as conservative, are averse to change. Historically this has been a successful evolutionary strategy because useful change has been sufficiently rare that suggested deviation from tradition was more likely to be self serving or have negative impact. However the accelerating pace of scientific and technologic change has led to so many advantageous disruptions that the conservative, who normally are part of the successful group due to avoiding wasting energy on fads and dangerous trends, have found themselves left behind and disenfranchised instead. Anybody who provides an excuse for their continued resistance to change can find very fertile ground indeed for any meme complex which validates the conservative/change averse approach.

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• Re:Rationale of Paper (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @10:22PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @10:22PM (#189867)

  These are all interesting theories, but you have to show how it compares to the data in the paper.

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