An echo chamber requires both homophily and biased information diffusion
Evidence
To understand the study, we first need to settle on what an echo chamber is exactly. The first ingredient is what we refer to as ‘homophily’, or the tendency for ‘birds of a feather to flock together’, so that users with similar views are more densely connected with each other than with the rest of the network. The second ingredient is a bias in the diffusion of information so that similar content is also more likely to reach like-minded peers. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 442
Categorization
- DEFINE: A clean two-ingredient definition of the echo chamber.
- XREF: connects to: Echo chambers amplify beliefs by sealing people off from counter-content — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 390; The echo chamber hypothesis about political blogging remains empirically contested — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 108; Information consistent with listeners’ expectations spreads while discrepant facts get suppressed — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1983 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- The echo chamber hypothesis about political blogging remains empirically contested
#qualifies(0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 108 - Repetition within echo chambers, not evidence, produces conspiracist assent
#expands(0.80) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 129 - Information consistent with listeners’ expectations spreads while discrepant facts get suppressed
#expands(0.72) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1983