The Echo Chamber: John Boyne

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Dahlgren, P. M. (2019). Selective exposure to public service news over thirty years: The role of ideological leaning, party support, and political interest. International Journal of Press/Politics, 24(3), 293–314.

Furthermore, there are several areas where there are some empirical studies but not necessarily convergent interpretations, or only convergent interpretations supported by data from a single or a few countries. These areas include, most notably: Phillips, W., & Milner, R. M. (2017). The ambivalent internet: Mischief, oddity, and antagonism online. Cambridge, and Malden, MA: Polity Press. Thus, there are distinct questions of outcomes (how many people live in echo chambers versus more diverse media spaces?) and contributing causes (what is the relative importance of active users’ choices versus algorithmic filtering in determining the diversity of sources people access?). Supply, distribution, and demand can all contribute to the formation of echo chambers.

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In public and policy debate the term echo chamber is sometimes used interchangeably with the term filter bubble, but it is important to distinguish between the two.

Commentators and analysts typically worry about echo chambers and filter bubbles because they fear they will fuel polarisation, diminish mutual understanding, and ultimately lead to a situation where people are so far apart that they have no common ground – effectively inhabiting different realities. Polarisation can take substantially different forms. The most important forms for the purposes of this review are the following. First, ideological polarisation, which refers to the degree to which people disagree about political issues. Second, affective polarisation, which refers to people’s feelings about the ‘other side’ – those they disagree with on a given issue. Third, news audience polarisation, which refers to the degree to which audiences for news outlets in a given country are generally more politically partisan or politically mixed. Thus, while we consider findings from the United States, these insights are not universally applicable. We therefore pay particular attention to comparative studies that can help capture differences and similarities across various national contexts and the situation in the United Kingdom specifically.In this literature review, we examine evidence concerning the existence, causes, and effect of online echo chambers and consider what related research can tell us about scientific discussions online and how they might shape public understanding of science and the role of science in society. But, importantly, many people do not have particularly strongly held political views and do not primarily approach news and media through a political lens (Bos et al. 2016; Yang et al. 2020). Often, basic interest, in turn partly aligned with levels of education and income, is a more important factor. Terms like echo chambers, filter bubbles, and polarisation are widely used in public and political debate but not in ways that are always aligned with, or based on, scientific work. And even among academic researchers, there is not always a clear consensus on exact definitions of these concepts. Analogous arguments have been made in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, where research in the US has shown polarisation in elite communication about the issue, with Democrats emphasising threats to public health and American workers, and Republicans placing greater emphasis on China and businesses early on in the pandemic (Green et al. 2020; see also Hart et al. 2020). Hamilton and Safford (2021) used survey data to show that trust in science agencies like the CDC declined rapidly among Republicans in the US but not Democrats, following Donald Trump’s changing views toward the CDC, views that were in turn amplified by conservative media including Fox News. This further underlines how top-down cues from political elites, including most prominently the President, were crucial to the deep partisan divide that formed around the subject.

Research on polarisation offers a complex picture both in terms of overall developments and the main drivers and there is in many cases limited empirical work done outside the United States. Overall, ideological polarisation has, in the long run, declined in many countries but affective polarisation has in some, but not all, cases increased. News audience polarisation is much lower in most European countries, including the United Kingdom. Much depends on the specifics of individual countries and what point in time one measures change from and there are no universal patterns. Dalton, R. J. (2006). Social modernization and the end of ideology debate: Patterns of ideological polarization. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 7(1), 1–22. When it comes to media, there is limited research outside the US and this work does not always find the same patterns as those identified in the US but, at least in the specific context of the United States, it seems that exposure to like-minded political content can potentially polarise people or strengthen the attitudes of people with existing partisan attitudes, and that cross-cutting exposure can potentially do the same for political partisans. Digital media and public discussions around science ↑ Adams, J., Green, J., & Milazzo, C. (2012b). Who moves? Elite and mass-level depolarization in Britain, 1987–2001. Electoral Studies, 31(4), 643–655.

The Echo Chamber

Powered by John Boyne's characteristic humour and razor-sharp observation, The Echo Chamber is a satiric helter skelter, a dizzying downward spiral of action and consequence, poised somewhere between farce, absurdity and oblivion. In this Q&A with him, the bestselling author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas spoke to The Penguin Post about his favourite book this year, cancel culture and his advice for finding your voice as a writer. Stuffed with stories, literary references and peculiar details, a history of troubled objects, this beguiling novel is a work of astonishing synthesis. Ultimately, it is an account of Evie's struggle to find her place in the post-colonial world, and thus assume an identity, an ideological position, of her own. She is all too aware, as Bruno Schulz noted, that "what is put in words is already halfway under control". Which may also explain why she believes, "There are no words that can describe the vibrancy of my audition." Maybe not, but by the time you finish this rich and resonant book, your ears are sure to be twitching. Together they will go on a journey of discovery through the Hogarthian jungle of the modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant. Along the way they will learn how volatile, how outraged, how unforgiving the world can be when you step from the proscribed path. The UK results from this study are broadly similar to a previous analysis, also based on survey data, that, using a more indirect measure of diversity of news use, found that around 10% in the UK said they almost never see political content on social media that they disagree with (Dubois and Blank 2018).