echo chambers
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2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Buder ◽  
Anja Zimmermann ◽  
Brett Buttliere ◽  
Lisa Rabl ◽  
Markus Huff

Online phenomena like echo chambers and belief polarisation are believed to be driven by humans’ penchant to selectively expose themselves to attitudinally congenial content. However, if like-minded content were the only predictor of online behaviour, heated debate and flaming on the Internet would hardly occur. Research has overlooked how online behaviour changes when people are given an opportunity to reply to dissenters, potentially turning a preference for attitudinally congenial information into a preference for uncongenial information. Three main experiments consistently show that in a discussion forum setting where users can respond to earlier posts, larger conflict between user attitude and post attitude predicts higher likelihood to respond. The effect of conflict on response behaviour is shaped by the attitudinal composition of the forum, and it also predicts subsequent polarisation of users’ attitudes. These results suggest that belief polarisation on social media can be driven by conflict rather than congeniality.


Author(s):  
Mahault Albarracin ◽  
Daphne Demekas ◽  
Maxwell Ramstead ◽  
Conor Heins

The spread of ideas is a fundamental concern of today’s news ecology. Understanding the dynamics of the spread of information and its co-option by interested parties is of critical importance. Research on this topic has shown that individuals tend to cluster in echo-chambers and are driven by confirmation bias. In this paper, we leverage the active inference framework to provide an in silico model of confirmation bias and its effect on echo-chamber formation. We build a model based on active inference, where agents tend to sample information in order to justify their own view of reality, which eventually leads to them to have a high degree of certainty about their own beliefs. We show that, once agents have reached a certain level of certainty about their beliefs, it becomes very difficult to get them to change their views. This system of self-confirming beliefs is upheld and reinforced by the evolving relationship between agent's beliefs and its observations, which over time will continue to provide evidence for their ingrained ideas about the world. The epistemic communities that are consolidated by these shared beliefs, in turn, tend to produce perceptions of reality that reinforce those shared beliefs. We provide an active inference account of this community formation mechanism. We postulate that agents are driven by the epistemic value that they obtain from sampling or observing the behaviors of other agents. Inspired by digital social networks like Twitter, we build a generative model in which agents generate observable social claims or posts (e.g. `tweets') while reading the socially-observable claims of other agents, that lend support towards one of two mutually-exclusive abstract topics. Agents can choose which other agent they pay attention to at each timestep, and crucially who they attend to and what they choose to read influences their beliefs about the world. Agents also assess their local network’s perspective, influencing which kinds of posts they expect to see other agents making. The model was built and simulated simulated using the freely-available Python package pymdp. The proposed active inference model can reproduce the formation of echo-chambers over social networks, and gives us insight into the cognitive processes that lead to this phenomenon.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-418
Author(s):  
Marina V. Zagidullina ◽  
Aleksander K. Kiklewicz

The article is of an overview and theoretical nature, and its subject is the active processes in the language of modern Russian mass media, caused by the democratization of society, especially in connection with the restructuring of the state and political system that took place in the countries of Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Based on scientific publications, as well as on empirical material (modern journalistic text), the authors systematize socio-cultural processes (within the framework of the general trend towards democratization) that have influenced and continue to influence the language of the media: the social construction of reality and the engagement of the media, the polarization of social groups and formations, the displacement of the transmission model of media functioning by the interaction model, the phenomenon of echo chambers. In connection with the influence of the socio-political factor, the authors note the most important dynamic processes in the language of the media, such as depatetization of the language clichs of the era of totalitarianism, neosemantization, the growth of vocabulary related to the sphere of consumerism, the activation of means serving the sphere of dialogical relations, overcoming an overly complex nature the language system, etc. It has been shown that the transition to a model of interaction between the media (with political, religious, public organizations, corporations - on the one hand, and the consumer community - on the other hand) caused the social engagement of media discourses, which in its the queue has caused the growth of labeling, evaluative and expressive text elements. Another important trend is associated with the phenomenon of echo chambers - its reflexes in the language of the media are the specialization of vocabulary and a decrease in the degree of grammaticalization of messages. The aspects of democratization of the language of the media presented in the article in the future can serve as parameters in accordance with which media monitoring can be carried out, including elements of a linguo-critical nature.


Topoi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Osler ◽  
Joel Krueger

AbstractAnorexia Nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder characterised by self-starvation. Accounts of AN typically frame the disorder in individualistic terms: e.g., genetic predisposition, perceptual disturbances of body size and shape, experiential bodily disturbances. Without disputing the role these factors may play in developing AN, we instead draw attention to the way disordered eating practices in AN are actively supported by others. Specifically, we consider how Pro-Anorexia (ProAna) websites—which provide support and solidarity, tips, motivational content, a sense of community, and understanding to individuals with AN—help drive and maintain AN practices. We use C. Thi Nguyen’s work on epistemic “echo chambers”, along with Maria Lugones’ work on “worlds” and “ease”, to explore the dynamics of these processes. Adopting this broader temporal and intersubjective perspective, we argue, not only helps to further illuminate the experiential character of AN but also has important clinical and therapeutic significance.


Author(s):  
Sachin Modgil ◽  
Rohit Kumar Singh ◽  
Shivam Gupta ◽  
Denis Dennehy

AbstractSocial media has played a pivotal role in polarising views on politics, climate change, and more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. Social media induced polarisation (SMIP) poses serious challenges to society as it could enable ‘digital wildfires’ that can wreak havoc worldwide. While the effects of SMIP have been extensively studied, there is limited understanding of the interplay between two key components of this phenomenon: confirmation bias (reinforcing one’s attitudes and beliefs) and echo chambers (i.e., hear their own voice). This paper addresses this knowledge deficit by exploring how manifestations of confirmation bias contributed to the development of ‘echo chambers’ at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Thematic analysis of data collected from 35 participants involved in supply chain information processing forms the basis of a conceptual model of SMIP and four key cross-cutting propositions emerging from the data that have implications for research and practice.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Bright ◽  
Nahema Marchal ◽  
Bharath Ganesh ◽  
Stevan Rudinac

Abstract Calls to “break up” radical echo chambers by injecting them with alternative viewpoints are common. Yet, thus far there is little evidence about the impact of such counter-messaging. To what extent and how do individuals who inhabit a radical echo chamber engage with messages that challenge their core beliefs? Drawing on data from the radical right forum Stormfront we address this question with a large-scale content and longitudinal analysis of users’ posting behavior, which analyses more than 35,000 English language contributions to the forum spanning 2011 through 2013. Our findings show that engaging with oppositional views is actually a core practice among Stromfront users which invites active participation and encourages engagement. Indeed, many “echoes” in the echo chamber we studied were not core beliefs being restated, but the sound of opposing viewpoints being undermined and marginalized. These findings underscore the limited potential for counter-messages to undermine radical echo chambers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-26
Author(s):  
Ilya Kiriya

This article explores aspects, transformations, and dynamics of the ideological control of the internet in Russia. It analyses the strategies of actors across the Russian online space which contribute to this state-driven ideological control. The tightening of legislative regulation over the last 10 years to control social media and digital self-expression in Russia is relatively well studied. However, there is a lack of research on how the control of the internet works at a structural level. Namely, how it isolates “echo chambers” of oppositional discourses while also creating a massive flood of pro-state information and opinions. This article argues that the strategy of the Russian state to control the internet over the last 10 years has changed considerably. From creating troll factories and bots to distort communication in social media, the state is progressively moving towards a strategy of creating a huge state-oriented information flood to “litter” online space. Such a strategy relies on the generation of news resources which attract large volumes of traffic, which leads to such “trash information” dominating the internet.


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