Comments on: Can we retire the “echo chamber” now?

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Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:06:13 +0000

[...] Can we retire the ‘echo chamber’ now? (Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard) [...]

By: IanRae

IanRae — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:32:07 +0000

Started with the Florida Recount? Not so sure — Clinton’s impeachment, Nader, Gary Hart, Ollie North, Newt Gingrich, Nixon, etc. It’s been a culture war all the way back to the Chicago Dem convention in ‘68. Filibusters and scandals seem to be the tactics of choice.

I’m still getting over the fact the Martin Luther King (and other civil rights leaders) were Republicans. Talk about changes!

By: Holly Arbuckle

Holly Arbuckle — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:40:30 +0000

If you really call a 52-to-46 race a “landslide” and “not close at all,” you’re holding the country to an embarrassingly low standard. One third of registered voters didn’t even vote.

By: Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:05:47 +0000

Nick — thanks for the nuanced take. Yes, the Web’s inherent dynamics are able to divide and unite, depending on how they’re used. My understanding of the orthodox “echo chamber” argument circa 2004, and as propounded by Sunstein et al., was that it declared conclusively that the Web left us locked in a spiral of increasing isolation from those we disagree with. By saying “let’s retire the echo chamber argument,” I don’t mean to say, “let’s assume that the only force the Web applies is a unifying one,” but rather, “let’s reject the one-sided picture of the Web that says that it can only divide us.”

I hereby attribute any confusion caused by my post to the effects of writing on too little sleep, post-election night!

By: reagankid

reagankid — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:31:26 +0000

“Today, we have at least an opportunity to begin to reduce that rancor and rebuild a national consensus. We have the first president in ages who can legitimately claim a mandate and work with a Congress of his own party. And I think we will see that the Web has a part to play in fashioning such a consensus. It doesn’t have to be a force for division; using it as such is a choice, not a technologically determined inevitability.”

Wait, so you mean building a national consensus among Democrats, right? Because having a heavily elected president representing the majority party in Congress isn’t consensus, it’s one party agreeing with itself.

National consensus means parties working together, conversing, and negotiating, which means give and take from both sides.

Call me cynical, but after eight years of Republican leadership, I don’t see elitist liberals sharing power with anyone. And unfortunately, of all the left-wing adherents I know, none of them seem particularly open minded about embracing classic conservative tenets as their own. The quasi-socialist illuminati have not yet begun to flex their muscles.

By: Best Webfoot Forward » Blogs fomenting partisanship? No, conservatives.

Best Webfoot Forward » Blogs fomenting partisanship? No, conservatives. — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:03:37 +0000

[...] his post today, Scott Rosenberg suggests that there are people who blame the blogosphere for how intensely nasty [...]

By: mary hodder

mary hodder — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:52:52 +0000

I think we are in a cycle of divisiveness and I think it’s very similar to the years just after the civil war leading up the WWI (with various mini wars in the middle). I don’t think the internet makes us this way, I think various forces and behaviors encourage one or another type of behavior depending on what the collective consciousness has recently gone through.

As for echo chamber memes and internet discussions and politics, I think 2004 was the year for that and things have evolved. And that’s good.

By: Nick Carr

Nick Carr — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:46:13 +0000

Scott,

I agree that we’re still in the process of understanding the balance between the web’s polarizing and consensus-building effects. But I wonder if you’re not oversimplifying when you imply that people have argued that the web is “the cause” of the political polarization of recent years. (It seems pretty clear that “the cause” is manifold and complex and that the polarization manifested itself in other media – talk radio, eg – before the web came along.) Let’s agree that the web’s divisions “simply mirror” existing divisions. The question then becomes: Does the web serve to amplify those divisions? That seems to me to be the interesting question, and I think the answer is: Yes, the web has certain characteristics, as a communication medium, that can serve to amplify, and exaggerate, the biases of users and groups of users. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t also countervailing consensus-building forces to be found on the web, but it does mean that there is an “echo chamber” effect at work. We certainly can and should debate the strength and importance of that effect, but to argue that we should “retire” discussion of it seems like a case of sticking one’s head in the sand.

Nick