The research doesn’t indicate this. Everyone is prone to echo chambers, but left leaning folks tend to have more diversified news sources, which is the balance to negate echo chambers.
The left have more diversified news sources because the country has generally been left-leaning in recent generations. It wasn’t “left” when ABC, CBS, NBC were the only news outlets; it was very much “middle-America”.
Not until Fox News came along did conservatives have a real alternative outlet. Still, most news outlets are left / left-middle to represent most people. If there’s five outlets with similar perspectives, a segment of the population will be divided among them. If there’s only one or two conservative outlets, there isn’t much diversity for conservatives to get their news from.
So, while I agree with you about diversified media, I’d argue the echo chamber is getting much stronger.
Ultimately, these news outlets report to their advertisers and corporate overlords. They control what news is being broadcast now that we have algorithms telling them what people want to watch. Back when the big three were all there were to report the news, they pretty much only had to report to the public trust and their own integrity. Today’s media works in both directions at near-lightspeed.
Regardless of political ideology, is the general population choosing to watch news reports that inform them or that enforce their existing feelings? Are you the kind of person who’s buying groceries because they’re good for you and good for the environment or are you the kind of person who buys cheaper comfort food? Perhaps more importantly, who’s telling you what’s good for you and what’s bad for you?
The research doesn’t indicate this. Everyone is prone to echo chambers, but left leaning folks tend to have more diversified news sources, which is the balance to negate echo chambers.
The left have more diversified news sources because the country has generally been left-leaning in recent generations. It wasn’t “left” when ABC, CBS, NBC were the only news outlets; it was very much “middle-America”.
Not until Fox News came along did conservatives have a real alternative outlet. Still, most news outlets are left / left-middle to represent most people. If there’s five outlets with similar perspectives, a segment of the population will be divided among them. If there’s only one or two conservative outlets, there isn’t much diversity for conservatives to get their news from.
So, while I agree with you about diversified media, I’d argue the echo chamber is getting much stronger.
Ultimately, these news outlets report to their advertisers and corporate overlords. They control what news is being broadcast now that we have algorithms telling them what people want to watch. Back when the big three were all there were to report the news, they pretty much only had to report to the public trust and their own integrity. Today’s media works in both directions at near-lightspeed.
Regardless of political ideology, is the general population choosing to watch news reports that inform them or that enforce their existing feelings? Are you the kind of person who’s buying groceries because they’re good for you and good for the environment or are you the kind of person who buys cheaper comfort food? Perhaps more importantly, who’s telling you what’s good for you and what’s bad for you?