By Nadine Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 27, 2013
The internet has given every crackpot a soapbox. At first this may come across as a mere annoyance; an unsolicited comment on an innocent YouTube video might leave you wondering if the person behind the username is truly coo-coo for coco puffs or if it’s a misguided troll. But the reality is a little bit more sinister. No matter what unbalanced view of the world you have, you can find an online community that will support you, and solidify your vision.
This is the danger of online communities; they’re a breeding ground for discussion between like-minded and often uninformed people.
Imagine for a moment that you believe that everyone should have a right to bear arms. You join a few online forums that agree with your sensibilities, and subscribe to a particularly radical newspaper put out by the National Rifle Association.
Soon enough, your views which were at first fairly moderate have changed; you might start thinking that weapons should not have to be registered or monitored by the government, or that there should be armed guards outside of every elementary school.
This phenomenon is known as group polarization: if a group as a whole has a similar underlying attitude towards a situation, over time and discussion the attitudes will often become significantly enhanced and strengthened.
Because people will seek out like-minded groups, opposing ideologies are rarely presented for serious consideration. In fact, perceptions of the prevalence of their views in society will become considerably exaggerated, which in some cases leads to a very vocal and rather radical group of people.
In “Dynamic debates: An analysis of group polarization over time on Twitter,” a study conducted by Danah Boyd and Yardi Sarita in 2010, this phenomenon of polarization was observed following the murder of George Tiller, an abortion doctor. After reading and analyzing 30,000 tweets by pro-life and pro-choice advocates, Boyd and Sarita found that like-minded individuals will reinforce and strengthen their views when congregating together. Conversation between opposing individuals did nothing but further polarize the discussion.
Issues that are often treated similarly online are ones that are complex and have no straight forward solutions: social justice; climate change and sustainability versus economic issues; healthcare; immigration; and crime are all heavily debated by people entrenched in their views.
So how do we have a healthy discussion on these types of topics?
In his recent article on “The Post Truth Era,” Gregg Henriques writes that working to become “more explicit about owning our justification systems” helps in understanding our prejudices. If we consider how our value system is influenced by our demographics, interests and life experience we can have a better understanding of where these values orginate, and what drives them. Henriques also emphasizes the effect of method when it comes to the nature of online discourse. People should engage in more of a dialogue, “an exchange with the purpose of understanding where the other person is coming from” rather than a debate, wherein “nonexperts” are attempting to convince another that their system of justification is more valid.
So next time you get in an argument with a random person after commenting on a Facebook post, remember to take the high road: it should be a discussion, not a flame war.
