The internet lets like-minded communities confirm prejudices instead of confronting difference

Evidence

Curtis attacks the internet because, in his view, it facilitates communities of solipsists, interpassive networks of like-minds who confirm, rather than challenge, each others’ assumptions and prejudices. Instead of having to confront other points of view in a contested public space, these communities retreat into closed circuits. But, Curtis claims, the impact of internet lobbies on Old Media is disastrous, since, not only does its reactive pro-activity allow the media class to further abnegate its function to educate and lead, it also allows populist currents on both the left and the right to ‘bully’ media producers into turning out programming that is anodyne and mediocre. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 158

Categorization

• SHARE: The ‘reactive pro-activity’ phrase describing how internet audiences demand-and-bully content producers is worth sending to a media analyst friend.
• QUESTION: Curtis’s claim that pre-internet public space was genuinely ‘contested’ warrants scrutiny — how far does this nostalgia hold?
• XREF: connects to: The Internet emboldens fringe believers by confirming isolated views — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 148; Discussing prejudiced views with likeminded peers intensifies rather than moderates them.; Shared knowledge of prejudice grants social permission to express bias — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 331 (+1 more)

Related

• The Internet emboldens fringe believers by confirming isolated views (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Discussing prejudiced views with likeminded peers intensifies rather than moderates them. #corroborates (0.90)
• Shared knowledge of prejudice grants social permission to express bias #exemplifies (0.80) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 331
• Reducing existing prejudice requires countering confirmation-biased information processing #expands (0.78) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1994