Comments on: A Theory of Echo Chambers – January 2018

By: The Echo Chamber Club

The Echo Chamber Club — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 17:08:44 +0000

Interesting point. My initial thoughts on the topic lead me to think they could be interchangeable with echo chambers – but will have to read up on it!

By: Rula

Rula — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 22:12:49 +0000

I think language constructs political narratives. Are these narratives that arise interchangeable with echo chambers then? Or is there some kind of relationship? Say, if you define an echo chamber to have a low variance in difference of opinion, and thus interpretation of words… a political narrative will have a low variance of interpretation of a word also… at least that was the assumption I laboured under looking into this!

What thought provoking read. I love it!

By: The Echo Chamber Club

The Echo Chamber Club — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 12:00:25 +0000

Thanks for this Moira! I’ll check these podcasts and books out 🙂

By: The Echo Chamber Club

The Echo Chamber Club — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 11:59:45 +0000

Hi Joe – I’m brand new to the concepts of polysemy and homophily too – so hopefully this makes sense!

Homophily is ‘love of the same’ – so it means our tendency to gather in specific groups. Polysemy refers to our tendency to interpret messages in different ways. So they are two separate concepts. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been that much done about the relationship between homophile and polysemy – it’s something I’d be quite keen to do in the future (if my reading continues to take me down this route).

I’m interested by your last comment – what’s your definition of ‘democracy’ – do you mean in terms of being exposed to different points of view? If that’s the case, then there is some great work being done by Webster (there’s a book called the Marketplace of Attention) which kind of disputes the idea that lots of people have no exposure to different points of view online and offline. I think that’s why the theory needs updating. Apologies if I’ve misunderstood what you meant ?

By: Josh Hallwright

Josh Hallwright — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 08:54:53 +0000

Great article and beautifully written – thanks again for the initiative.

My two cents:

Whats’s the relationship between polysemy and homophily? I’m a novice in this area but very much intrigued. Historically, is there evidence of polysemy in homophily societies (apologies if I’m getting the unit of analysis mixed up)? Does the desire to share an identity (in this case by what you look like) trump the desire for shared meaning? Fascinating to think they could be separate!

I wonder what role choice plays in all this? I can imagine communities before the internet not having a great deal of social or physical mobility, whereas after the internet both of these sped up (whether due to the internet or to congruent technologies). So before the internet, it was more important to share an identity with those around you than to share meaning. Put another way, people had to put up with their neighbours more before the internet. Nowadays, it’s so much easier to hold true to your own values without exposing them to questioning because you can jump online and find a community who shares your values so easily. Framed this way (hat-tip to Moira’s comment), the internet protocols as they are seem more undemocratic than democratic.

By: Moira

Moira — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 16:39:40 +0000

This really is a fascinating topic. A couple of reading / listening recommendations:

George Lakoff on framing:
Book – Don’t think of an elephant;
Podcast – Framelab Podcast and he also appeared on We can talk about podcast Ep12

John Naughton new writing on 95 theses in the Guardian newspaper and other places. You’ll also find him on some episodes of Talking Politics podcast. A really nice one with a colleague of yours from OII who won the 9 dots prize.

Have fun; this sounds fabulous!!

By: Alex Krasodomski-Jones

Alex Krasodomski-Jones — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 15:31:07 +0000

I liked the piece – language is key, agreed, but I don’t know how far you can dis-aggregate language and community. I think there’s something missing about ‘facts’ and facts and Facts and ‘Facts’ and information about the world. My understanding of echo chambers is not so much one of differing opinions about the world, but differing understandings of the world itself, the underlying facts and figures and about what’s going on, what the world looks like.

Events as ‘factually indisputable’ is an interesting point, too. I mean, 9/11 happened, but speak to a 9/11 truther and that’s about all we’ll agree on. The facts of the case are far from factually indisputable.

By: Ed Saperia

Ed Saperia — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:41:55 +0000

Interesting. When humans communicate regularly they tend to spontaneously create local languages/vocabulary. Often these are optimisations for succinct reference to local phenomena. You could potentially define community in this way. It may be that echo chambers are entirely a natural byproduct of this process.

By: Agam Rafaeli

Agam Rafaeli — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 18:57:56 +0000

One thought – Language is a tool to conserve echo chambers. It helps signify who is with you, and what language means you should “stop listening” think about someone who gets triggered and won’t talk more about “climate change”.

This is probably part of a bigger idea of language being a barrier not only between speakers of English, but also as an explanation for the problematic of cross-cultural communication