Information consistent with what recipients expect gets amplified while discrepant information gets dropped

Evidence

Other related research has shown that group members often tailor their communications to suit what they think or believe the targets of their communication efforts want to hear, need to hear, or can readily comprehend (Manis, Cornell, & Moore, 1974). Higgins (1999) characterizes this general process as “audience tuning.” Because of audience tuning, information tends to be only selectively presented. Along related lines, Burt and Knez (1995) demonstrated that information tends to diffuse within networks so that information consistent with what communicators think their targets want to hear gets amplified, whereas expectation-inconsistent or discrepant information tends to be dampened or dropped. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1983

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to Milgrom’s law merchant work on information costs and to the ‘signal vs. noise’ theme from the soundscape books — expectation-consistent info is the signal that crowds out the dissonant noise. — connects to: Information and broadcast amplification neutralize the very events they extend. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 293
• SHARE: Burt & Knez network diffusion result is exactly the kind of citation a network sociologist colleague would appreciate — expectation-consistent info amplifies, discrepant drops.