An underrated way to get out of your echo chamber is to actually talk to people in person. I lean fairly conservative, while my wife and her friends are very liberal. Whenever we happen to talk about political topics, most of the time we end up understanding where each other are coming from, even if we still don't agree.
Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#32I have been reading daily news for 50 years. When I first started reading the news, it was objective. It portrayed facts with little opinion. Then during the Reagan presidency, I noticed a trend towards liberal bias in the media. This is well documented by MRC.org. To counter this, conservative talk radio was born, and Fox news was created.
In the din of infinite media outlets, the major media outlets must stand out from the crowd. They do this by extending their bias to outright advocacy for their political side. This is happening on both sides. Other niche outlets are doing the same thing to be attractive to a specialized set of readers.
Unfortunately, it has gone from advocacy to outrage. A daily outrage occurred in the media in response to Trump, where every action created an outrage from one offended group or another. It was more than just Trump. "Cancel culture" was created where those who were outraged by something someone said on social media "cancelled" the speaker's life by erasing them from society. They lost their jobs and were ostracized by their peers.
Where does all this lead? I hope it is not violence. However, the political violence I see everyday in the form of violent protests and riots is not a welcome sight.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#33> "Until you can passionately make arguments for both sides," she says, "you don't understand the issue."
I think this is the key quote. It should really be taboo to have an opinion without an understanding of how the other side argues.
(Ironically the search for counterarguments would often strengthen my position because they would turn out to be quite weak. Nevertheless I think that the exercise is important.)
I think the words "well-reasoned opinion" describe it well: try to see what part of your opinion is fact, which experts you trusted for that, and what part is morality and ethics.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#34My main issue with American news and commentary is the complete lack of skepticism of those on 'their side' of an issue.
On the right, when Trump hadn't yet gotten control of the party, there was some persistent reaction against him from established conservative media. Once he got control, it was almost complete silence.
On the left, evidence of how much of the investigation into Russian collusion with Trump's election team was completely made up and water carrying by the media of Clinton's team's planted story has never been owned by the participants.
There are near infinite examples of this on both sides. I just want media that is skeptical of those in power and those seeking power. All of them, not those on another team.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#35I identify pretty closely with one side. But certainly there are Outrage Machines on both sides, a network of media and personalities hyping up the latest calumny that the other side committed, for views and clicks. These machines can't slow down -- even if the other side has been quiet lately, all those people need something to do and talk about. They'll find something.
One thing a lot of people miss is that there is a profit motive here. You can make money, sometimes a lot of money, by building a huge social media following being a political outrage merchant. You can find examples of people doing this on all sides, especially at the extremes where outrage and other powerful negative emotions can most easily be stirred up. All the outrage over "cancel culture" is not about censorshi…
> make money [...] by building a huge social media following being a political outrage merchant.
I think you have summarised both the nature of the US "information economy" and the state of political discourse in the US.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#36There's a thing that happened with the Canada subreddit. It used to be kind of an interesting sub where youd get neat Canada-wide local stories (mostly Ontario) that were genrally pleasant. It was a nice place to visit after being inundated with American politics. Then, sometime in the early 10s and it gradually became very partisan and political. Which, to clarify, means it got substantially worse.
It, like the comment sections on Canadian news websites, leaned heavily to the right. So a group got together and made alt Canada subreddit that leaned heavily left called OnGuardForThee.
Originally, I thought it would be helpful to compare the two subs to get something closer to the middle but instead all that happened was I got twice as much screaming hot garbage.
I unsubbed from both and now individually sub to all the Canadian town I can find. It's better now. There's so much less anger.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#37I think this is missing the darker point, which is that the main stream media along with the political parties that support them, are the the echo chamber. It’s not that we are caught in an echo chamber, rather it’s the information from mass media corporations that has created the echo chamber. If anything, to break out so to speak, is perhaps as easy as simply turning off all news, and paying more attention directly to what politicians are saying.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do the same thing, and I've noticed that this "they don't present the other side" thing is getting worse with time. I recently read [this HuffPo article][0] about how only 1% of American film characters are identifiably Muslim ; however, nowhere in the article does it even mention the share of Americans who are Muslim, nor the share of movie characters that are of other religions. These things are certainly obvious…
"(According to [1], only 1% of Americans are Muslim, and 60+% are Christian--and I would be shocked if 60+% of American film characters are identifiably Christian never mind [how they are portrayed][2])" Yet both Muslims and Christians are in the news a lot, and there's a lot of political discussion about them. It would be refreshing if more mainstream fictional media featured them in realistic, three-dimensional por…
for me, personally, absolutely not. I want thoughtful portrayal of character in media that I consume, but am in no way desiring yet more religious representation.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#39I wonder how different the polarization is at the local level. It's easy to get outraged about policies in another part of the country if your position doesn't really affect you. I'm guessing people have more nuanced views about, say, fertilizer or pesticides if they live in a very agricultural area or about investing in mass transport if they live in an urban area.
Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers
#40I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…
If you like podcasts, try Left, Right & Center by KCRW. Their sister show All the Presidents' Lawyers is pretty good too, but what I like about LR&C is that it really does show multiple sides without a constant yelling fest. Sure there are the occasional "you don't really believe that do you?" moments, but it's largely civil.