Echo chamber (media)

What is MEDIA ECHO CHAMBER? What does MEDIA ECHO CHAMBER mean ...

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In news media, the term echo chamber is analogous to an acoustic echo chamber where sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure. An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. Inside a figurative echo chamber, official sources often go unquestioned and different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented. The echo chamber effect reinforces a person's own present world view, making it seem more correct and more universally accepted than it really is. Another emerging term for this echoing and homogenizing effect on the Internet within social communities is cultural tribalism.

Video Echo chamber (media)

Overview

Observers of journalism in the mass media have recognized that an echo chamber effect is occurring in media discourse. 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) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true.

The echo chamber effect that occurs online is due to a harmonious group of people amalgamating and developing tunnel vision. Participants in online discussions may find their opinions constantly echoed back to them, which reinforces their individual belief systems. However, individuals who participate in echo chambers often do so because they feel more confident that their opinions will be more readily accepted by others in the echo chamber. This is happening because the Internet has provided access to a wide range of readily available information and people are increasingly receiving their news online through untraditional sources. Companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, have established personalization algorithms that cater specific information to individuals' online newsfeeds. This method of curating content has replaced the function of the traditional news editor.

Online social communities become fragmented when like-minded people group together and members hear arguments in one specific direction. In certain online platforms, such as Twitter, echo chambers are more likely to be found when the topic is more political in nature compared to topics that are seen as more neutral. Social networking communities are powerful reinforcers of rumors because people trust evidence supplied by their own social group, more than they do the news media. This can create significant barriers to critical discourse within an online medium. Social discussion and sharing suffer when people have a narrow information base and don't reach outside their network.

Many real-life communities are also segregated by political beliefs and cultural views. The echo chamber effect may prevent individuals from noticing changes in language and culture involving groups other than their own. Online echo chambers can sometimes influence an individual's willingness to participate in similar discussions in the real world. A 2016 study found that "Twitter users who felt their audience on Twitter agreed with their opinion were more willing to speak out on that issue in the workplace".

Maps Echo chamber (media)

Examples

Ideological echo chambers have existed in many forms, for centuries. The echo chamber effect has largely been cited as occurring in politics.

The McMartin preschool trial coverage was criticized by David Shaw in his 1990 Pulitzer Prize winning articles, "None of these charges was ultimately proved, but the media largely acted in a pack, as it so often does on big events, and reporters' stories, in print and on the air, fed on one another, creating an echo chamber of horrors." He said this case "exposed basic flaws" in news organizations like "Laziness. Superficiality. Cozy relationships" and "a frantic search to be first with the latest shocking allegation". "Reporters and editors often abandoned" journalistic principles of "fairness and skepticism." And "frequently plunged into hysteria, sensationalism and what one editor calls 'a lynch mob syndrome.'"
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal reporting was chronicled in Time Magazine's 16 February 1998 "Trial by Leaks" cover story "The Press And The Dress: The anatomy of a salacious leak, and how it ricocheted around the walls of the media echo chamber" by Adam Cohen. This case was reviewed in depth by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in "The Clinton/Lewinsky Story: How Accurate? How Fair?"
Starting in the fall of 2014, the Gamergate attacks and journalists' responses might be considered as echo chambers.
Echo chambers have also been linked to the UK Brexit referendum.
The 2016 presidential election in the United States triggered a stream of discourse about the echo chamber in media. Constituents were more likely to absorb information about topics such as gun control and immigration that aligned with their preexisting beliefs, as they were more likely to view information they already agreed with. Facebook is more likely to suggest posts that are congruent with your standpoints; therefore there was mainly repetition of already stable standpoints instead of a diversity of opinions. Journalists argue that diversity of opinion is necessary for true democracy as it facilitates communication, and echo chambers, like those occurring in Facebook, inhibited this. Some believed echo chambers played a big part in the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential elections.
The subreddit /r/incels and other online incel communities have also been described as echo chambers.

change debate fueled by 'echo chambers,' study finds

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References

echo chamber | Final Media Literacy Project | Pinterest

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Echo chamber (media)

Senin, 27 November 2017