Echo Chambers and Network Clusters
Many people were surprised by the results of the election, and post election analysis tells us that social media has a lot to do with it. Because people are allowed to curate their friends online, it’s very easy to become part of a bubble, or an echo chamber, where ideas that you agree with are reinforced while others that you might not agree with are shoved to the side, ignored, or even deleted. It is easy, then, to surround yourself with like minded friends and have them confirm your ideas, which then makes one think that their worldview is the only worldview. This article, “Blue Feed, Red Feed” demonstrates the disparity between the two parties and the way that people on either side of certain issues consume sources of information.
This relates to the topics we are covering in class because this phenomenon is similar to the idea of a threshold cascade and clusters within the network. Because people can selectively choose who and what they see on the internet, clusters become more dense. Information spreads quickly throughout these clusters, but the problem is the lack of bridges between clusters. We know from earlier topics that weak links are a very important source of information, and are crucial to the spread of information throughout an entire network and not just a certain section of it. People can choose to disconnect themselves to anyone that might be outside of their cluster, and therefore limit the spread of information from both sides.
Source:
http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/