When you seek out news, do you go only to sources that will present what you want to hear or are there some alternate views given? Brooke Gladstone of “On the Media” has pondered and written in the past about how people are using the internet. She gave an interesting update Saturday to the complicated topic:
Echo Chamber
Echo Chamber
From On the Media:
In 2004, we spoke with law professor Cass Sunstein about the echo chamber effect, the phenomenon by which the explosion of information streams allows us to cherry-pick our media diet so we encounter only news that reinforces our worldview (while evading facts and opinions that contradict it). And so, seven years later are we on a path to ever more intellectual isolation?
I think there is a lot of validity to the this point. We can pick from a multitude of sources to receive information and can equally tune others out. There a lot of people that never even tune into Fox News.
That’s true with me. I’d have to already know there’s something on Fox News I’d want to catch before I’d tune in. The last time I watched was following the Arizona tragedy of Gifford’s assassination attempt. Because of the discussion on this blog I want to know why the local sheriff’s statements were being questioned.