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Are Filter Bubbles Real?
There has been much concern over the impact of partisan echo chambers and filter bubbles on public debate. Is this concern justified, or is it distracting us from more serious issues?
Axel Bruns argues that the influence of echo chambers and filter bubbles has been severely overstated, and results from a broader moral panic about the role of online and social media in society. Our focus on these concepts, and the widespread tendency to blame platforms and their algorithms for political disruptions, obscure far more serious issues pertaining to the rise of populism and hyperpolarisation in democracies. Evaluating the evidence for and against echo chambers and filter bubbles, Bruns offers a persuasive argument for why we should shift our focus to more important problems.
This timely book is essential reading for students and scholars, as well as anyone concerned about challenges to public debate and the democratic process.
Axel Bruns argues that the influence of echo chambers and filter bubbles has been severely overstated, and results from a broader moral panic about the role of online and social media in society. Our focus on these concepts, and the widespread tendency to blame platforms and their algorithms for political disruptions, obscure far more serious issues pertaining to the rise of populism and hyperpolarisation in democracies. Evaluating the evidence for and against echo chambers and filter bubbles, Bruns offers a persuasive argument for why we should shift our focus to more important problems.
This timely book is essential reading for students and scholars, as well as anyone concerned about challenges to public debate and the democratic process.
- GenresTechnologyPolitics
160 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2019
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110 people want to read
About the author
Axel Bruns
35 books4 followersAxel Bruns is Associate Professor, ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 29, 2020
Great book on one of the most hyped topics right now in digital media. Bruns does a thorough job in, first, defining filter bubbles and echo chambers and, then, proceeding to systematize and explain research that disproves them. It turns out that FB and EC are concepts that were not very thought-through and are not connected to reality. As the author explains in detail towards the end, those concepts thrived because they were a simple and visual explanation for the current polarization and extremism in our political systems. However, they don’t do a good job at that. Besides, saying that filter bubbles and echo chambers don’t exist doesn’t mean that the polarization is also imaginary: it is certainly there. Nonetheless, we should seek for reasons elsewhere, probably in the area of media psychology.
In summary, a short and very objective book based on digital media research that can (and should) be read by a wider audience.
In summary, a short and very objective book based on digital media research that can (and should) be read by a wider audience.
April 22, 2025
Did not finish. Do not care to finish. Horribly outdated. Definitely helped me question/negotiate some of my fears re: the algorithms but I can not take this book seriously when they are citing research from 2015. I will credit this book in helping me adopt a slightly-less technological-deterministic view on the subject, but HOLY FUCK has the landscape changed since 2019. Also this might be a bit reductive and based off my faulty memory of what I read, but in essence this book tells me that based off research conducted on closed-source platforms ABOUT closed-source platforms there is no sufficient evidence to say filter bubbles are real. BITCH LET ME SEE THE SOURCE CODE BECAUSE THE WRITING WAS ON THE WALL IN 2019 AND IT LOOKED VERY BAD.
This reminds me of my frustrations with academia: the eggheads are always late to the party and too scared and/or career-focused to dive into the heart of things. Reminds me of a class discussion where I was holding the line down against having surveillance cameras inside homes (i.e. doggie cams, etc.), the white-liberal professor was screaming "moral panic", my mostly white-liberal classmates were lapping it up, and the only person in the room nodding in agreement to the points I was making was the Chinese international student. We are cooked! LOL
This reminds me of my frustrations with academia: the eggheads are always late to the party and too scared and/or career-focused to dive into the heart of things. Reminds me of a class discussion where I was holding the line down against having surveillance cameras inside homes (i.e. doggie cams, etc.), the white-liberal professor was screaming "moral panic", my mostly white-liberal classmates were lapping it up, and the only person in the room nodding in agreement to the points I was making was the Chinese international student. We are cooked! LOL
July 16, 2023
The author makes a strong case (again and again) for the claim that both "Filter Bubbles" and "Echo Chambers" exist only in the very extremes of online or offline communities, after doing a good job at defining these terms so as to provide clarity to their meanings and the differences between the two.
The author rightly (in my opinion) sees the issue not in technology and the moral panic it gives rise to, but in the people using it; and not in fragmentation, but in polarization. He does not discuss the reasons for polarization and almost completely ignores the issues of post-truth and fake-news. He only mentions that the direction of the analyses regarding polarization should be attempted within the context of human-psychological mechanisms (which he claims I think to be orthogonal to a particular media or technology).
Generally I agree with most of the author's claims. However, the only quarrel I have with this book is that it is so very repetitive and there was no real justification or merit to repeat the same sentences for 130 or so pages, unless the author is trying to use the known psychological mechanism according which repeating a fact times enough causes people to adopt it eventually.
The author rightly (in my opinion) sees the issue not in technology and the moral panic it gives rise to, but in the people using it; and not in fragmentation, but in polarization. He does not discuss the reasons for polarization and almost completely ignores the issues of post-truth and fake-news. He only mentions that the direction of the analyses regarding polarization should be attempted within the context of human-psychological mechanisms (which he claims I think to be orthogonal to a particular media or technology).
Generally I agree with most of the author's claims. However, the only quarrel I have with this book is that it is so very repetitive and there was no real justification or merit to repeat the same sentences for 130 or so pages, unless the author is trying to use the known psychological mechanism according which repeating a fact times enough causes people to adopt it eventually.
April 25, 2021
Really interesting discussion about filter bubbles and echo chambers, well researched and evidenced. Even if you disagree with the conclusions, it's well worth reading just to understand the various viewpoints.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews