The internet as an echo chamber.
 

The internet proves that we want to be controlled. We've chosen to believe that technology has helped us ascend beyond the grasp of the mass media, but the trends in internet technology keep bringing us back to the speaker/listener model. Despite all of the freedom that the internet allows us, we still organize ourselves in easily controllable structures, electing a few to disseminate information to the many.

I feel very strongly that my perception of the world is shaped by my exposure to the internet, but the world is actually very different than the internet would have me believe. The most prevalent of proofs for this idea come in the political sector, where it is hard not to be influenced by the landslide of Obama support that you encounter on every single website you can visit. The actuality is that the presidential race is a tight one and Obama needs to jump a lot more hurdles than just John McCain to get into the White House. In the internet, where nobody has a skin color, its easy to forget the biggest reason he may not win.

Politics aside, the popular opinion on the internet is that we connected individuals are among the more informed and intelligent people of the world. All those with minimal internet experience can suck one, right? Well, this is the perpetrator of the echo chamber. In actuality, the internet is probably the best example of a swarming school of fish and the mob mentality. With all the variety, there are still the societal paradigms of the majority going with the flow. With the shift from forum and BBS communication to blogs, news feeds and social bookmarking, the flow of information is becoming more of a broadcast model.

In the past, we've held the mass media responsible for keeping us in the dark, but the internet culture is beginning to do it to itself. The mass media, in this case, are riding the waves that we create. We're pulling the wool over our own eyes. Get your news from DailyKos and The Huffington Post, but don't be surprised when the outside world rings in with a different opinion - one that actually sticks.

To combat this, I suggest the re-emergence of forum participation. Internet bulletin boards are not what they used to be due to the popularity of blogs and social bookmarking, but they are a truly democratic model of communication that is vital if we believe in the free flow of information and ideas. A user presents a topic of discussion and everyone hashes it out. Its democratic AND entertaining. Forums are self-moderating (provided that the management is sane), to ensure that all viewpoints are heard and only the most reasonable ones are perpetuated. Even social bookmarking can't claim that level of effectiveness.

Thank you for reading. Now give me your thoughts.

I would suggest the metaphor of a hole in the ground or bathroom wall rather than an echo chamber, but yes the momentum given opinions on the internet often doesn't reflect the world at large.

Take the film Snakes On A Plane. (please) If the internet reflected a real world movie going public, then that film should have made Titanic money before the tide turned against it.


I'll try to add more later tonight.

The best examples of all of this is Digg.com. People Digg stuff just because other people are digging it. I remember one time I made a comment "up top" on a new story and it got dugg down even though what I said was reasonable and true. One guy finally said "why the fuck are you digging him down? he's right!!!!!!!" and my comment shot back up into the positives. Class dismissed!

I thought about this over the weekend because I had no access to any Internet. I had to watch TV news and read newspapers to find out what was going on in the world.

I watched local Las Vegas news, and Meet the Press.

Well, I can tell you that a small plane crashed overshooting the runway in North Las Vegas. People are afraid that they will one day crash into a house because they fly in so low on landing approach.

Mrs. Palin has lots of detractors and also some encouragers. McCain had an exclusive interview Meet the Press. He didn't answer much of the questions tossed at him, and the interviewer didn't follow up too much. I mean kinda phoned it in really. McCain smiled and said she was the best.... blah blah blah blah...

So when I came home, before I turned on the computer, I thought about how I have been manufactured the need to "check in" to social networks and blogs. There isn't much discussion going on in those spaces. It's almost respite from discussion. But then again, where do you discuss something? In real life, you don't discuss things in depth, you give cursory answers of politeness so that maybe they'll stop talking and you can go on your way.

I thought about the manufactured habits article I posted in the Mass Media thread.

I've discovered that I don't want to just have the information presented to me, I need to see the information, discuss the information, alter my perception if needed, and then start the cycle all over again.

I've notice I have my internet "routines", TFP, Kotaku, BBCnews, youtube, etc.
Yes, I think most blogs are way less interactive than forums, but on Kotaku (a video game blog), I often read all the comments on the posts that are interesting to me (say Valve's new game, Left 4 Dead). When a blog is well written and the comments well moderated, you do get some good content and thought provoking posts.
They encourage this by punishing retarded comments (the Youtube style comments) and having features like "comments of the week" which are either funny or interesting comments that have been chosen by the commenter community. It's a good way to reward people, IMO.

Those who chose to spend their time in forums will have a chance to participate in mature discussions, but for the rest, it is much easier to just absorb information quickly as it's presented to you, without discussing it or analyzing it.
Hopefully forumgoers won't get discouraged by the fact that they're the minority, I'd hate to see the end of discussion boards.

This thread is somewhat reminiscent of the "Television is a Vast Wasteland" speech given by Newton Minow, exploring the then new frontier of television and the responsibility of the broadcasters.

Perhaps it really is time for a dialogue about what direction we really want this new internet frontier to head in. Minow was right when he said that the public interest isn't always just what interests the public. There is a deeper responsibility to guide a new medium of communication, allowing it not to work within the confines of it's predecessors but to expand to it's full and right potential. This will take very serious discussion and ultimately the same vigilance that we use to protect and explore all things that are important to us as a people.
And your delicious brains...

and how does the internet control me?

I would say that the Internet is a series of echo chambers. People of like minds gravitate to one another.

i suspect this is an oversimplification. yes, there are people out there who believe everything they´re told but the effect would be the same, be it internet, tv, radio or word of mouth. there is a lot more information readily available on the internet than in any other format and the responsibility lies with the person to analyse the information and figure out as best they can where the truth lies.

actually i suspect there may be a cross-wiring of the idea of people gathering and people sharing the same opinion. people gather in all sorts of situations and the internet is just another method for humans to be able to indulge in this activity. to say that people gathering are all automatically of the same mind is obviously wrong - that would make for some boring conversation...

so no, i don´t agree with the op at all.

There's a ton of information to be had on the internet. It's impossible to see an event from every angle so we're forced to filter what we do see and this is what's actually hurting us. When we filter out what we don't want to see, we filter out world views that don't conform to out own views and this puts us in a tiny bubble with like minded people and we end up "preaching to the choir," so to speak. It's not just Internet vs Real world. We can't even comprehend the vastness of the internet. Digg, Fark, These sites are netting tons and tons of visitors per day yet they're just a drop of water in a pond. There's completely separate worlds on the internet.
It's not that we're being controlled. We almost have too much control. Like you said, We're pulling the wool over our eyes. If we aren't exposed to different views, we'll never change. We have to go out of our way to expose ourselves to these things even if we don't like what we're being shown at first glance. When I first got on the internet, it wasn't exactly easy to find information. There was no Google, Digg, Fark or anything else. If I wanted to discuss something, I'd hop on IRC and find an active channel and start chatting about whatever. This is what shaped my world views. I couldn't filter out what I didn't like. I read everything that crossed the screen. Now, I'm in my little bubble, listening to my echo...

I maintain my position that people in general are a bunch of idiots. Before the Internet, there was never such an efficient way to bring together massive groups of like-minded idiots. Now that there is, we have things like 4chan and World Net Daily getting global exposure.

I will admit that I also thought the Internet was bigger than it was, particularly about the political drama unfolding this year. I thought that in general Barack Obama was heavily favored over Hillary Clinton but he really wasn't even though the Internet wants you to believe he was.

There's also a huge congregation of BS spewing out of the Internet at any given time as well. Look at email forwards that are fake. Even my coworkers who have been working in IT for 5, 10, 15 years believe photoshopped images and forwarded emails are real. These are the same people who go to family reunions and hear raw bullshit that their relatives tell them like Barack Obama is Saddam Hussein's brother.

The Internet changes nothing.