When defined as a bounded, enclosed media space that has the potential to both magnify the messages delivered within it and insulate them from rebuttal, studies in the UK estimate that between six and eight percent of the public inhabit politically partisan online news echo chambers. Brulle, R.J., Carmichael, J., & Jenkins, J. C. (2012). Shifting public opinion on climate change: An empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002–2010. Climatic Change, 114(2), 169–188. But, importantly, many people do not have particularly strongly held political views and do not primarily approach news and media through a political lens (Bos et al. 2016; Yang et al. 2020). Often, basic interest, in turn partly aligned with levels of education and income, is a more important factor. Prior, M. (2005). News vs. entertainment: How increasing media choice widens gaps in political knowledge and turnout. American Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 577–592. Cinelli, M., De Francisci Morales, G., Galeazzi, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Starnini, M. (2021). The echo chamber effect on social media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(9), e2023301118.

Broadly, a number of studies find that while many people do engage in some degree of selective exposure, they do not necessarily engage in selective avoidance (Bos et al. 2016; Garrett 2009; 2013; Garrett and Stroud 2014; Jang 2014; Johnson et al. Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146. JB. That people would stop being so judgmental about others and treating anyone with a different opinion as a monster that needs to be annihilated. So much of modern society takes place online where there seems to be very binary opinions of people – you’re either good or bad, morally upright or just a terrible human being – and life is not as simple as that. We have to stop judging each other with such ferocity. Too many people online actively seek to destroy the lives, careers, and reputations of complete strangers. It’s a terrible way to live. None of us are perfect and yet there’s this expectation that we must watch our every word or risk ‘cancellation’, a disgusting word in itself. As if a human being can be ‘cancelled’. We’re not a television programme or a train service. Some of this research has compared differences between groups that form around science versus conspiracy news (Del Vicario et al. 2016a; Del Vicario et al. 2016b), whereas other research has focused on specific topics like vaccines (Cinelli et al. 2021; Cossard et al. 2020; Dunn et al. 2015; Schmidt et al. 2018), abortion (Cinelli et al. 2021), climate change (Williams et al. 2015), and most recently COVID-19 (Wang and Qian 2021).

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Polarisation, in social science, refers to divisions between groups. It can be used to describe a situation where divisions are already sufficiently large to be considered polarised, or a process whereby divisions are becoming larger over time (even though they may still be quite small). Polarisation can take many forms and is not always intrinsically problematic (some things are worth disagreeing over, see Kreiss 2019).

Virtually all the studies reviewed above on echo chambers, filter bubbles, and polarisation are concerned with the interplay between politics, news, and media use. Commentators and analysts typically worry about echo chambers and filter bubbles because they fear they will fuel polarisation, diminish mutual understanding, and ultimately lead to a situation where people are so far apart that they have no common ground – effectively inhabiting different realities. Polarisation can take substantially different forms. The most important forms for the purposes of this review are the following. First, ideological polarisation, which refers to the degree to which people disagree about political issues. Second, affective polarisation, which refers to people’s feelings about the ‘other side’ – those they disagree with on a given issue. Third, news audience polarisation, which refers to the degree to which audiences for news outlets in a given country are generally more politically partisan or politically mixed. Fletcher, R., Robertson, C. T., & Nielsen, R. K. (2021b). How many people live in politically partisan online news echo chambers in different countries? Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, 1.

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Iyengar, S., & Hahn, K. S. (2009). Red media, blue media: Evidence of ideological selectivity in media use. Journal of Communication, 59(1), 19–39.