Echo Chamber Design

Echo Chamber

Personal Project

Interactive Installation

Reflection upon irrational discourses

Overview

“Echo Chamber” is an interactive installation that create an immersive experience for people to interact and reflect upon the root cause behind many irrational discourses on social media and the internet. As a result of many complex reasons and phenomenons, people might be trapped in an echo chamber that only hear voices that confirms their own opinions. I hope to encourage people to be aware of the potential or existing echo chamber and have the courage to step outside of the trapped room.

Background

Timeline: development of media

Traditional Media vs New Media

Characteristic of Internet Discourse

Companies such as Google and Facebook have designed algorithms that are intended to filter away irrelevant information -- known as information selection -- so that we are only served content that fits our clicking history.

Information Selection

When people are connected by a network, it becomes possible for them to influence each other’s behavior and decisions in the opinions they hold, the product they buy, the political positions they support, the activities they persue and many other things.

Information Cascade

An entire group may shift to a more radical viewpoint after a discussion even though the individual group members did not subscribe to this view prior to the discussion.

Group Polarization

One phenomenon is “Click-bait headline”, which refers to use enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered. There are publishers in online forum that utilizes click-bait headline to exaggerate the reality to attract viewers.

Strong Subjectivity

Social Media Influencer

Influencers are people who influence a large number of individuals. These persons often work with professional teams to brand themselves and draw attention. Influencers generate conversation, drive engagement and create culture trends. They have the power to drive people towards a certain direction.

Fragmented Information

With the democratization of news media, the information transmitted via different channels of media poliferates drastically and becomes more fragmented for people to consume. This phenomenon contributes to the “information selection” as it prompts people to seek out more like-minded views.

Infotainment

Infotainment is a type of media that provides a combination of information and entertainment. The topic of news media today being more commonly considered “infotainment” has increased with the growing popularity of social medias. The popularity of memes is one example of infotainment.

Echo Chamber

As a result of these phenomenons, people might be trapped in an echo chamber that only hears their own voices and opinions. Under this environment, it’s difficult to hold a menaingful and rational conversation between people.

Virtual Community and Rational Discourse

Definition of Virtual Community

A virtual community is a social aggregations of individuals who interact around a shared interests or goals, where the interaction is mediated by technology. Being a member of these communities implies the consent or aggreement to a certain idea, behavior, lifestyle or interest. These agreements are often established upon individual’s personality, experiences and values.

A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interests. A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity including celebrity, hobbies, genres or fashions. Fans devote a significant portion of time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices.

XIAO ZHAN

#Chinese actor and signer

Fans of Xiao Zhan have been criticized for disturbing public order and defacing a campus’s graffiti wall after they fathered outside of the institute to celebrate Xiao’s birthday.

Hashtags attracted millions of views on China’s twitter-like Sina Weibo.

This event just happened a few days ago. Before this dramatic event, Xiao’s fans are already involved in a cyberwar with other internet users due to their reporting of website AO3 (fan fiction site). The fan group is led by leaders who dominate the conversation and elicit other fans to act accordingly, which is to report the website and attack any people they viewed as critical to Xiao Zhan.