900
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

Echo chambers, polarization, and “Post-truth”: In search of a connection

Received 11 Nov 2022, Accepted 24 Jan 2023, Published online: 15 Feb 2023

References

  • Abramowitz, A. (2013). The polarized public? : Why American government is so dysfunctional. Pearson.
  • Abramowitz, A. I., & Saunders, K. L. (2008). Is polarization a myth? The Journal of Politics, 70(2), 542–555. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381608080493
  • Allcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2020). The welfare effects of social media. The American Economic Review, 110(3), 629–676. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190658
  • Ansolabehere, S., Rodden, J., & Snyder, J. M., Jr. (2006). Purple america. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2), 97–118. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.20.2.97
  • Baron, J., & Jost, J. T. (2019). False equivalence: Are liberals and conservatives in the United States equally biased? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(2), 292–303. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618788876
  • Begby, E. (2022). From belief polarization to echo chambers: A rationalizing account. Episteme, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.14
  • Billig, M., & Tajfel, H. (1973). Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 3(1), 27–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420030103
  • Bleakley, P. (2021). Panic, pizza and mainstreaming the alt-right: A social media analysis of Pizzagate and the rise of the QAnon conspiracy. Current Sociology.
  • Bramson, A., Grim, P., Singer, D. J., Berger, W. J., Sack, G., Fisher, S., Flocken, C., and Holman, B. (2017). Understanding polarization: Meanings, measures, and model evaluation. Philosophy of Science, 84(1), 115–159. https://doi.org/10.1086/688938
  • Bullock, J. G., & Lenz, G. (2019). Partisan bias in surveys. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-050904
  • Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., Miller, W. E., & Stokes, D. E. (1980). The American voter. University of Chicago Press.
  • Campbell, D. E., Green, J. C., & Layman, G. C. (2011). The party faithful: Partisan images, candidate religion, and the electoral impact of party identification. American Journal of Political Science, 55(1), 42–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00474.x
  • Castle, J. (2019). New fronts in the culture wars? Religion, partisanship, and polarization on religious liberty and transgender rights in the United States. American Politics Research, 47(3), 650–679. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X18818169
  • Castle, J. J., & Stepp, K. K. (2021). Partisanship, religion, and issue polarization in the United States: A reassessment. Political Behavior, 43(3), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09668-5
  • Caughey, D., Dunham, J., & Warshaw, C. (2016). Polarization and Partisan divergence in the American public, 1946-2012. Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Chicago, Illinois.
  • Center, P. R. (2016). Partisanship and political animosity in 2016. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/
  • Citrin, J., & Stoker, L. (2018). Political trust in a cynical age. Annual Review of Political Science, 21(1), 49–70. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050316-092550
  • Converse, P. E. (2006). The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964). Critical Review, 18(1–3), 1–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/08913810608443650
  • Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S. A., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Way, R., Jacobs, P. Skuce, A. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 8(2), 024024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
  • DiMaggio, P., Evans, J., & Bryson, B. (1996). Have American’s social attitudes become more polarized? The American Journal of Sociology, 102(3), 690–755. https://doi.org/10.1086/230995
  • Elzinga, B. (2020). Echo chambers and audio signal processing. Episteme, 19(3), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2020.33
  • Engels, A., Hüther, O., Schäfer, M., & Held, H. (2013). Public climate-change skepticism, energy preferences and political participation. Global Environmental Change, 23(5), 1018–1027. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.05.008
  • Fiorina, M. P., Abrams, S. A., & Pope, J. C. (2008). Polarization in the American public: Misconceptions and misreadings. The Journal of Politics, 70(2), 556–560. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002238160808050X
  • Frey, W. H. (2018). Diversity explosion: How new racial demographics are remaking America. Brookings Institution Press.
  • Fritts, M., & Cabrera, F. (2022). Fake news and epistemic vice: Combating a uniquely noxious market. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 8(3), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2021.11
  • Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. (1993). The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. European Review of Social Psychology, 4(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779343000004
  • Galliford, N., & Furnham, A. (2017). Individual difference factors and beliefs in medical and political conspiracy theories. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58(5), 422–428. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12382
  • Gentzkow, M. (2016). Polarization in 2016. Toulouse Network for Information Technology Whitepaper, 1–23.
  • Green, D., Palmquist, B., & Schickler, E. (2008). Partisan hearts and minds. Yale University Press.
  • Haltinner, K., & Sarathchandra, D. (2018). Climate change skepticism as a psychological coping strategy. Sociology Compass, 12(6), e12586. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12586
  • Haltinner, K., & Sarathchandra, D. (2021). The nature and nuance of climate change skepticism in the United States. Rural Sociology, 86(4), 673–702. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12371
  • Hawley, G. (2018). Making sense of the alt-right. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Hetherington, M. J., & Rudolph, T. J. (2015). Why Washington won’t work: Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Hetherington, M. J., & Rudolph, T. J. (2018). Political trust and polarization. In E. M. Uslaner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of social and political trust (pp. 579–597). Chicago: Oxford University Press.
  • Hill, S. J., & Tausanovitch, C. (2015). A disconnect in representation? Comparison of trends in congressional and public polarization. The Journal of Politics, 77(4), 1058–1075. https://doi.org/10.1086/682398
  • Hogg, M. A. (2007). Uncertainty–identity theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 69–126.
  • Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A., Bain, P. G., & Fielding, K. S. (2016). Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change. Nature climate change, 6(6), 622–626. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2943
  • Huber, G. A., & Malhotra, N. (2017). Political homophily in social relationships: Evidence from online dating behavior. The Journal of Politics, 79(1), 269–283. https://doi.org/10.1086/687533
  • Isenberg, D. J. (1986). Group polarization: A critical review and meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(6), 1141. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.6.1141
  • Iyengar, S. (2021). The polarization of American politics. In M. Hannon & J. de Ridder(Ed.), The Routledge handbook of political epistemology (pp. 90–100). Routledge.
  • Iyengar, S., Konitzer, T., & Tedin, K. (2018). The home as a political fortress: Family agreement in an era of polarization. The Journal of Politics, 80(4), 1326–1338. https://doi.org/10.1086/698929
  • Iyengar, S., Sood, G., & Lelkes, Y. (2012). Affect, not ideology: a social identity perspective on polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3), 405–431. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfs038
  • Iyengar, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2015). Fear and loathing across party lines: New evidence on group polarization. American Journal of Political Science, 59(3), 690–707. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12152
  • Jacobson, G. C. (2003). Partisan polarization in presidential support: The electoral connection. Paper presented at the Congress & the Presidency: A Journal of Capital Studies.
  • Jamieson, K. H., & Cappella, J. N. (2008). Echo chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the conservative media establishment. Oxford University Press.
  • Kahan, D. M. (2013). Ideology, motivated reasoning, and cognitive reflection. Judgment and Decision Making, 8(4), 407–424.
  • Kahan, D. M. (2015). Climate–science communication and the measurement problem. Political Psychology, 36, 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12244
  • Kahan, D. M. (2016). The politically motivated reasoning paradigm, part 1: What politically motivated reasoning is and how to measure it. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 29, 1–24.
  • Kahan, D. M. (2017). ‘Ordinary science intelligence’: A science-comprehension measure for study of risk and science communication, with notes on evolution and climate change. Journal of Risk Research, 20(8), 995–1016. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1148067
  • Kahan, D. M., & Braman, D. (2006). Cultural cognition and public policy. Yale L & Pol’y Rev, 24(1), 149.
  • Kahan, D. M., Jenkins–smith, H., & Braman, D. (2011). Cultural cognition of scientific consensus. Journal of Risk Research, 14(2), 147–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2010.511246
  • Kalmoe, N. P., & Johnson, M. (2021). Genes, ideology, and sophistication. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 9(2), 1–12.
  • Kaufmann, K. M. (2002). Culture wars, secular realignment, and the gender gap in party identification. Political Behavior, 24(3), 283–307. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021824624892
  • Keller, T. R., & Klinger, U. (2019). Social bots in election campaigns: Theoretical, empirical, and methodological implications. Political Communication, 36(1), 171–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2018.1526238
  • Kimball, D. C., Vorst, E. C., Green, J., Coffeey, D., & Cohen, D. (2014). Political Identify and Party Polarization in the American Electorate. In J. C. Green, D. J. Coffey, & D. B. Cohen (Eds.), The Sate of the Parties: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Parties (7th ed., pp. 68–98). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Lackey, J. (2018). True story: Echo chambers are not the problem. Morning Consult. https://morningconsult.com/opinions/true-story-echo-chambers-not-problem.
  • Lackey, J. (2021). Echo Chambers, Fake News, and Social Epistemology. In S. Bernecker, A.K. Flowerree, & T. Grundmann (Eds.), The Epistemology of Fake News (pp. 206–227). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Lelkes, Y. (2016). Mass polarization: Manifestations and measurements. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 392–410. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw005
  • Levendusky, M. (2009). The partisan sort. University of Chicago Press.
  • Levendusky, M. S. (2013). Why do partisan media polarize viewers? American Journal of Political Science, 57(3), 611–623. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12008
  • Levendusky, M., & Malhotra, N. (2016). Does media coverage of partisan polarization affect political attitudes? Political Communication, 33(2), 283–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2015.1038455
  • Levy, G., & Razin, R. (2019). Echo chambers and their effects on economic and political outcomes. Annual Review of Economics, 11(1), 303–328. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080218-030343
  • Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., & Cook, J. (2017). Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the “post-truth” era. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(4), 353–369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008
  • Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(11), 2098. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2098
  • Luttig, M. D. (2018). The “Prejudiced personality” and the origins of partisan strength, affective polarization, and partisan sorting. Political Psychology, 39, 239–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12484
  • MacInnis, B., & Krosnick, J. (2020). Climate insights 2020: Partisan divide.
  • Mackie, D., & Cooper, J. (1984). Attitude polarization: Effects of group membership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(3), 575. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.575
  • Marlon, J., Howe, P., Mildenberger, M., Leiserowitz, A., & Wang, X. (2018). Yale climate opinion maps, 2018. Yale program on climate change communication.
  • Mason, L. (2013). The rise of uncivil agreement: Issue versus behavioral polarization in the American electorate. The American Behavioral Scientist, 57(1), 140–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212463363
  • Mason, L. (2016). A cross-cutting calm: How social sorting drives affective polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw001
  • Mason, L., & Wronski, J. (2018). One tribe to bind them all: How our social group attachments strengthen partisanship. Political Psychology, 39, 257–277. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12485
  • Matthews, P. (2015). Why are people skeptical about climate change? Some insights from blog comments. Environmental Communication, 9(2), 153–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2014.999694
  • McCarty, N. (2019). Polarization: What everyone needs to know®. Oxford University Press.
  • McCarty, N., Poole, K. T., & Rosenthal, H. (2016). Polarized America: The dance of ideology and unequal riches. mit Press.
  • McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011a). Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States. Global Environmental Change, 21(4), 1163–1172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.06.003
  • McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011b). The politicization of climate change and polarization in the American public’s views of global warming, 2001–2010. The Sociological Quarterly, 52(2), 155–194. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2011.01198.x
  • Metaxas, P., Finn, S. T., Metaxas, P., Schizas, D., Boikou, V., & Economopoulos, K. P. (2017). Blood versus crystalloid cardioplegia in pediatric cardiac surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Pediatric cardiology, 38(8), 1527–1539. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00246-017-1732-4
  • Miller, A. G., McHoskey, J. W., Bane, C. M., & Dowd, T. G. (1993). The attitude polarization phenomenon: Role of response measure, attitude extremity, and behavioral consequences of reported attitude change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(4), 561. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.4.561
  • Miller, J. M., Saunders, K. L., & Farhart, C. E. (2016). Conspiracy endorsement as motivated reasoning: The moderating roles of political knowledge and trust. American Journal of Political Science, 60(4), 824–844. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12234
  • Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., & Matsa, K. (2015). Millennials and Political News. Retrieved from 27 Jun 2022. CID: 20.500.12592/h72ccm.https://policycommons-net.proxy.lib.umich.edu/artifacts/619083/millennials-and-political-news/1600136/on
  • Motta, M. (2021). Republicans, not democrats, are more likely to endorse anti-vaccine misinformation. American Politics Research, 49(5), 428–438. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211022639
  • Myers, D. G., & Lamm, H. (1976). The group polarization phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin, 83(4), 602. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.4.602
  • Nederhof, A. J. (1985). Methods of coping with social desirability bias: A review. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15(3), 263–280. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420150303
  • Nguyen, C. T. (2020). Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Episteme, 17(2), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.32
  • Oreskes, N. (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. science, 306(5702), 1686. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1103618
  • Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2011). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
  • Ribeiro, F. N., Saha, K., Babaei, M., Henrique, L., Messias, J., Benevenuto, F., Goga, O., Gummadi, K. P. Redmiles, E. M. (2019). On microtargeting socially divisive ads: A case study of Russia-linked ad campaigns on facebook. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency. Atlanta, Georgia.
  • Santos, B. R. (2021). Echo chambers, ignorance and domination. Social Epistemology, 35(2), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2020.1839590
  • Sarathchandra, D., & Haltinner, K. (2021). How believing climate change is a “hoax” shapes climate skepticism in the United States. Environmental Sociology, 7(3), 225–238. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2020.1855884
  • Seo, H., & Ebrahim, H. (2016). Visual propaganda on Facebook: A comparative analysis of Syrian conflicts. Media, War & Conflict, 9(3), 227–251. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635216661648
  • Settle, J. E. (2018). Frenemies: How social media polarizes America. Cambridge University Press.
  • Sharman, A. (2014). Mapping the climate sceptical blogosphere. Global Environmental Change, 26, 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.03.003
  • Sriram, N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2009). The brief implicit association test. Experimental Psychology, 56(4), 283–294. https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169.56.4.283
  • Stempel, C., Hargrove, T., & Stempel, G. H., III. (2007). Media use, social structure, and belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 84(2), 353–372. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900708400210
  • Stoner, J. A. F. (1961). A comparison of individual and group decisions involving risk. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational Identity: A Reader, 56(65), 9780203505984–9780203505916.
  • Tomlinson, E. C., Schnackenberg, A. K., Dawley, D., & Ash, S. R. (2020). Revisiting the trustworthiness–trust relationship: Exploring the differential predictors of cognition–and affect–based trust. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 41(6), 535–550. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2448
  • Tuters, M., Jokubauskaitė, E., & Bach, D. (2018). Post-truth protest: How 4chan cooked up the Pizzagate bullshit. M/C Journal, 21(3). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1422
  • Uscinski, J. E. (2018). Conspiracy theories and the people who believe them. Oxford University Press.
  • Valentino, N. A., & Sears, D. O. (2005). Old times there are not forgotten: Race and partisan realignment in the contemporary South. American Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 672–688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00136.x
  • Van der Linden, S., Panagopoulos, C., Azevedo, F., & Jost, J. T. (2021). The paranoid style in American politics revisited: An ideological asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking. Political Psychology, 42(1), 23–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12681
  • van Eck, C. W., Mulder, B. C., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Echo chamber effects in the climate change blogosphere. Environmental Communication, 15(2), 145–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1861048
  • Van Rensburg, W. (2015). Climate change scepticism: A conceptual re-evaluation. SAGE Open, 5(2), 2158244015579723. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015579723
  • Wang, X., Sirianni, A. D., Tang, S., Zheng, Z., & Fu, F. (2020). Public discourse and social network echo chambers driven by socio-cognitive biases. Physical Review X, 10(4), 041042. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.10.041042
  • Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policymaking. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
  • West, E. A., & Iyengar, S. (2020). Partisanship as a social identity: Implications for polarization. Political Behavior, 44(2), 1–32.
  • Wong-Parodi, G., & Feygina, I. (2020). Understanding and countering the motivated roots of climate change denial. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 42, 60–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.11.008

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.