Social media - echo chambers and politics

[JimC]

Being extra grumpy doesn't count...

[Hermit]

And I think Hermit might tie with me for being the leftest in the village.

Oh, do fuck off, malingering trailer-trash. I'd rather listen to Pauline Hanson for forty two thirty twenty ten five two minutes every year than be likened to you in any respect. Besides, I'm just a run-of-the-mill armchair lefty, among the first to be shot in the back of the head by a политрук as he escorts me along a basement corridor of a re-educational institution.

Note to Jimbo: Do not - I repeat - do not take this post serially, poopyhead.

[pErvinalia]

Commie.

[Hermit]

Commie.

Channelling mister Weiser?

[Animavore]

Hatred of Trump is justified in my opinion. Actually the whole Republican party. We have here a frustratingly anti-science, irrational, pig ignorant administration who seem to look at the evidence and do the opposite. Look at what the experts say and say they're lying. You just want to throttle them and every ignoramus supporter, but instead you're expected to lower yourself and try to understand them, when they would never extend the courtesy and learn some fucking basic science, economics, or anything really.

Republican supporters tend to have really short memories and can't see further than short-term gains. They have a base, feast or famine attitude towards life and seem unable to see into the future. Nor to they seem to care about the generation which follows them and are happy to mess up their children's future for in exchange for some brief comfort.

[Tero]

But the babies!

They want to save all the babies now. The fetuses. Never mind the world the babies end up in. Or the food for the babies after birth.

[rainbow]

Yeah, the far right in the States hated Obama. They called him a secret muslim, a crypto-communist, a non-citizen. Trump of course was a vocal "birther". Some of the religious wackos said he was possessed by a demon. They called him the antichrist. A lot of them called him a racist, and believed the US had no race problems until Obama. The Republicans in congress actively tried to block just about everything he wanted to do. They cheated him out of a SCOTUS nomination.

The religious far right in the US is totally fucking bananas. The crazy shit that they are dumb enough to believe is just mind-boggling.

Trump is far more hated though. Trump's approval ratings have dipped as low as 31 or 32%. Obama was never that unpopular.

Yes, but many on the Far Right have not yet developed opposable thumbs, which makes getting on social media quite difficult.
Not impossible as Trump clearly demonstrates.

[Tero]

[Tyrannical]

There's been quite a lot written of late about the way the internet creates silo communities - echo chambers for people drawn together by one common viewpoint or united against one. I think it is likely a common phenomenon and it may well have added to the polarisation in many developed countries in political debate.

So I have a question about this as it affects me and my ilk - mostly liberal, left leaning types, supportive of the like of Obama and socialist leaning governments in Europe.

Most of the people I know and associate with are roughly in that category and most of them detest Trump. Most of what I read and see on the net is attacking him and what appears to be his wildly out of control and ill disciplined right wing agenda. There appears to be a lot of negative response.

BUT - was there a similar reaction to Obama from the Right during his terms in office that was invisible to me and my fellow lefties - living as we do too in our own silos and echo chambers?

Or is Trump just a bigger cunt than any earlier Prezidints?

The Good news (for you)......

Trump is the most 'Left' leaning Republican in history. Back in his big construction days, nobody else would hire women and blacks like he would to positions of authority.

[Joe]

There's been quite a lot written of late about the way the internet creates silo communities - echo chambers for people drawn together by one common viewpoint or united against one. I think it is likely a common phenomenon and it may well have added to the polarisation in many developed countries in political debate.

So I have a question about this as it affects me and my ilk - mostly liberal, left leaning types, supportive of the like of Obama and socialist leaning governments in Europe.

Most of the people I know and associate with are roughly in that category and most of them detest Trump. Most of what I read and see on the net is attacking him and what appears to be his wildly out of control and ill disciplined right wing agenda. There appears to be a lot of negative response.

BUT - was there a similar reaction to Obama from the Right during his terms in office that was invisible to me and my fellow lefties - living as we do too in our own silos and echo chambers?

Or is Trump just a bigger cunt than any earlier Prezidints?

The Good news (for you)......

Trump is the most 'Left' leaning Republican in history. Back in his big construction days, nobody else would hire women and blacks like he would to positions of authority.

I'm not sure it matters. The hardcore Trump supporters I know aren't particularly ideological, just reactionary. They're against a lot, but not for much.

To Rum's question, Trump is a bigger public cunt than any previous President, though Nixon was worse, but we didn't know about it until later. It's easy to hate someone who trolls you so much.

[Rum]

There's been quite a lot written of late about the way the internet creates silo communities - echo chambers for people drawn together by one common viewpoint or united against one. I think it is likely a common phenomenon and it may well have added to the polarisation in many developed countries in political debate.

So I have a question about this as it affects me and my ilk - mostly liberal, left leaning types, supportive of the like of Obama and socialist leaning governments in Europe.

Most of the people I know and associate with are roughly in that category and most of them detest Trump. Most of what I read and see on the net is attacking him and what appears to be his wildly out of control and ill disciplined right wing agenda. There appears to be a lot of negative response.

BUT - was there a similar reaction to Obama from the Right during his terms in office that was invisible to me and my fellow lefties - living as we do too in our own silos and echo chambers?

Or is Trump just a bigger cunt than any earlier Prezidints?

The Good news (for you)......

Trump is the most 'Left' leaning Republican in history. Back in his big construction days, nobody else would hire women and blacks like he would to positions of authority.

How is that 'left leaning'? It is simply right and fair. So to be right wing automatically means you are racist and prejudiced? Maybe that explains the state of Merica right now.

[Rum]

An interesting article about this very topic.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0X17302828

Ideological Asymmetries in Conformity, Desire for Shared Reality, and the Spread of Misinformation

Ideological belief systems arise from epistemic, existential, and relational motives to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord. According to system justification theory, however, some ideologies—such as those that are conservative, religious, and legitimizing of the status quo—are especially appealing to people whose epistemic, existential, and relational motives are chronically or temporarily heightened. In this article, we focus on relational motivation, describing evidence that conservatives are more likely than liberals to: (1) prioritize values of conformity and tradition; (2) possess a strong desire to share reality with like-minded others; (3) perceive within-group consensus when making political and non-political judgments; (4) be influenced by “watchful eyes” and sources who are perceived as similar to them; and (5) maintain homogenous social networks and favor an “echo chamber” environment that is conducive to the spread of misinformation.

(more...)

[Tero]

I couldn't read it, too many elitist socialist words in it! Must be that humanities mumbo jumbo. It's like that Unitarian religious inclusive pat on your head stuff. Best thing to put you to sleep at night. But I gave it away.

[pErvinalia]

An interesting article about this very topic.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0X17302828

Ideological Asymmetries in Conformity, Desire for Shared Reality, and the Spread of Misinformation

Ideological belief systems arise from epistemic, existential, and relational motives to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord. According to system justification theory, however, some ideologies—such as those that are conservative, religious, and legitimizing of the status quo—are especially appealing to people whose epistemic, existential, and relational motives are chronically or temporarily heightened. In this article, we focus on relational motivation, describing evidence that conservatives are more likely than liberals to: (1) prioritize values of conformity and tradition; (2) possess a strong desire to share reality with like-minded others; (3) perceive within-group consensus when making political and non-political judgments; (4) be influenced by “watchful eyes” and sources who are perceived as similar to them; and (5) maintain homogenous social networks and favor an “echo chamber” environment that is conducive to the spread of misinformation.

(more...)

yeah, I've written about system justification theory a couple of times before. It explains a lot.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Once the (ideologically motivated) misinformation has taken root, it's exceptionally difficult to quell:

'When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions [PDF]

An extensive literature addresses citizen ignorance, but very little research focuses on misperceptions. Can these false or unsubstantiated beliefs about politics be corrected? Previous studies have not tested the efficacy of corrections in a realistic format. We conducted four experiments in which subjects read mock news articles that included either a misleading claim from a politician, or a misleading claim and a correction. Results indicate that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group. We also document several instances of a “backfire effect” in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.