Echo chambers may be a lesser problem than a larger unstated social-media dynamic

Evidence

The researchers suggested that a multitude of reasons could help explain this surprising and rather concerning result. For example, although randomly allocated, some of the retweets from the bot accounts came from political elites which may have elicited an ‘anti-elite’ backlash among Twitter users. But another likely explanation comes from our own research, which suggests that the problem of echo chambers may be secondary to an even larger issue on social media. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 453

Categorization

• QUESTION: Sets up the author’s alternative explanation that will follow — worth tracking as the chapter builds its core thesis.
• XREF: connects to: Echo chambers often form offline rather than through filter bubbles — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 427; Being inside an echo chamber raises one’s odds of encountering misinformation — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 447; The echo chamber hypothesis about political blogging remains empirically contested — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 108 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The echo chamber hypothesis about political blogging remains empirically contested #qualifies (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 108
• Polarization arises from social media access, not from people’s own content choices #corroborates (0.78) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 466
• Polarization is both cause and consequence of echo chambers over time #expands (0.75) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 483
• Social media may be changing citizens’ perception of the public sphere itself #complicates (0.72) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 43