Elizabeth Kolbert in
The New Yorker discusses whether the internet promotes the spread of bizarre rumors by encouraging "group polarization":
People’s tendency to become more extreme after speaking with like-minded others has become known as “group polarization”...
“Views that would ordinarily dissolve, simply because of an absence of social support, can be found in large numbers on the Internet, even if they are understood to be exotic, indefensible, or bizarre in most communities,” Sunstein observes. Racists used to have to leave home to meet up with other racists (or Democrats with other Democrats, or Republicans with Republicans); now they need not even get dressed in order to “chat” with their ideological soul mates.
“It seems plain that the Internet is serving, for many, as a breeding group for extremism, precisely because like-minded people are deliberating with greater ease and frequency with one another,” Sunstein writes. He refers to this process as “cyberpolarization.”
Put the Web’s filtering tools together with cyberpolarization and what you get, by Sunstein’s account, are the perfect conditions for spreading misinformation. Who, on liberal blogs, is going to object to (or even recognize) a few misstatements about Sarah Palin? And who, on conservative blogs, is going to challenge mistaken assertions (or, if you prefer, lies) about President Obama?
The article implies that the internet has led to an increase in group polarization, extremism, and crazy rumors. But is this actually true? I'm not sure. The article describes all the crazy rumors that have circulated online about Obama, but crazy rumors have flourished in every era of history.
(Thanks, Gary!)
Comments
It brings to my mind the quote attributed to Churchill: A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
The internet has extended the principle of the free market to reality itself. Don't like the reality you've got? Shop around on the internet and get a better one. Of course, the real reality may come up and punch you on the nose eventually, but it's going to take a while before that fact gets through to some people.
The truth is in between. There have always been people with different beliefs and people at the same time seek validation/affirmation for their beliefs. However, history has shown a tendency to try to limit superstition and irrationality for the last few hundred years. Sure, there have been major movements "backward" but there has been a lot of progress and enlightenment.
The internet does create differences and I am not sure Sunstein gets at what is different (I am not an expert in any sense either). There have long been polarizing tendencies along with herd influences. What is different is the level and immediacy of evidence and our ability to handle it.
What I see is a lack of perspective (which is why hoaxing/gullibility is increasingly easy) which is unique; we are educated and given information to a certain extent but we have lost a way of creating perspective--and often perspective is manufactured by the medium giving us the information that we can see past somewhat but also ultimately leaves most people completely rudderless in a sea filled with "info debris".
Some of this is not new but the mix of things is new and I am not sure if we "know how to know" well enough to avoid some serious problems.
It's a fact!