Mediasphere - Echo Chamber

 

What is a Mediasphere? A mediasphere is a collective environment of all media outlets; this includes newspapers, television, radio, internet platforms, and social media. Knowing this we can dive into a part of the mediasphere that is a media problem. This media problem is known as echo chambers. Echo chambers are people who are in an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. Echo chambers can happen anywhere information is exchanged this can be online or in real life. Nowadays almost anyone on the Internet can quickly find like minded people and perspectives using social media and countless news sources. This has made echo chambers far more common and easy to fall into. This at first doesn’t seem like a big problem right? Just a bunch of close minded people listening to something they just want to hear whether it is true or not from a source. 

    Wrong, This is the problem that echo chambers have in our society. If the information is wrong and a group of people come together to post and talk about it, eventually people would see this and take this information as right when it is really wrong. This tends to happen a lot in the media world, especially on social media. A recent accident that occurred was with LifeandScars as he was announced dead for about 2 weeks when really he was in jail and it all started to cause one of his moderators on Discord thought it would be funny to spread a rumor he had died.

    So you are probably wondering, how do I know when I'm in an echo chamber. Well, echo chambers can be really tricky to realize if you're not willing to put in the work to do these three small steps. First, does it only give one perspective on an issue, second what is the viewpoint is it supported by a rumor or incomplete evidence, third are other facts ignored when they combat their reasons? 

    Some other actions you can take is trying your best to avoid them! There is no effective way to constantly avoid these echo chambers for multiple reasons. One of the reasons is filter bubbles, which are created by algorithms that keep track of what you click on. Websites will use those algorithms to primarily show you content that is similar to what you’ve already expressed interest in through the data it has collected. However, here are some steps you can take; first make sure you check multiple news sources to make sure you are getting the right information, second interact with people that have opposite opinions, third remember just because you want something to be true it does not have to be true, and fourth be careful of what your watching or clicking a lot of.