Dangers of the echo chamber

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:28:23 +0000

By Expendito Chipasha Chipalo

In science, the echo chamber is defined as “a room with walls that reflect sound. It is used to make acoustic measurements and as a source of reverberant sound to be mixed with direct sound for recording or broadcasting.”

It is also known as the reverberation chamber.

In politics, the echo chamber is defined as a person who totally, obsequiously agrees with everything another person says.”

The word obsequious may be difficult for some readers and should perhaps be explained before proceeding with the rest of the article; the word means exhibiting fawning attentiveness or courting favor by a cringing or flattering manner. Dogs for example fawn on their masters.

The echo chamber syndrome also refers to media abuse and according to the free encyclopedia; “in news media, the term echo chamber is analogous with an acoustic echo chamber, where sounds reverberate in a hollow enclosure.”

“An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. Inside a figurative or imaginary echo chamber; official sources often go unquestioned and different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented.”

Here in Zambia all these forms of the echo chamber have become evident in the political sphere. Followers of certain parties have become echo chambers. They believe anything their leaders say and amplify the rumors without checking the veracity of the statements or allegations.

Politicians, particularly in the opposition, have seriously become echo chambers. They will join in a campaign championing causes they are not connected to or are not even conversant with and reverberate like hollow halls that are not sound proofed.

The recent incessant attacks on Judge Sunday Nkonde are a good example of the echo chamber syndrome in our politics. Former Post Newspaper in Liquidation owner Mr. Fred Mmembe used his wife’s newspaper the Mast to launch a sustained campaign against Judge Nkonde.

Days on end the leader stories in the Mast were Nkonde this, Nkonde that, Nkonde there; politicians from the opposition as well as their sympathizers were approached to make comments, in essence acting as echo chambers of Mr. Mmembe’s message regardless of the relevance of the statements they made.

Even the “leading” opposition leader, UPND President Hakainde Hichilema joined the charade as chief echo chamber proclaiming Mr. Mmembe and his lawyer Mr. Nchima Nchito as innocent.

None of the people quoted by the Mast said anything substantively different from the other speaker; they just echoed the same idea. Here is a situation where people have been charged with an offence. All accused persons are supposed to appear in a court of law and prove their innocence.

In this country, an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty before a court of law, why then should a person or individuals who claim to be innocent of the charge labeled against them fail to appear before the court.

And herein lies the danger of the echo chamber syndrome, the opposition leaders who spoke in favor of the accused duo disregarded the simple fact that all citizens are subject to the law. The voices that echo in the minds of all the speakers tell them that some Zambians, and in this particular case, Mr. Mmembe and Mr. Nchito should live above the law.

But like somebody said, if one is acting out of principle, why not be like Julia Chikamoneka. She stripped naked in front of the colonial oppressors and did not run or hide because she was acting out of principle.

Unfortunately, even the readers and followers of our opposition leaders just extend the echo chamber blindly. The impact of the echo chamber syndrome on politics throughout the world has even become stronger because of the growth of the social media.

In our country, we have many social media platforms and some have become notorious for spreading false news and preaching hatred. The Zambian Watchdog for example preached such hatred before and after the 2016 elections and many followers believed the rumors. It even declared a winner before the announcement of the official results.

Researchers at international level have established that the internet has narrowed people’s view of the world. A study on what the researchers are calling the “Facebook ‘echo chamber’ has concluded that the internet is making people more narrow minded.

“Facebook allows users to browse information from across the globe – but instead of making people worldlier, the social media site is actually making them more narrow-minded. Users simply seek out views that align with their opinions” suggests the study published in the journal; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Despite the world being at their fingertips, the study found that users “tend to aggregate in communities of interest, which causes reinforcement and fosters confirmation bias, segregation, and polarization.”

“This comes at the expense of the quality of information and leads to proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumors, mistrust, and paranoia,” wrote the authors.

The researchers, from Boston University and various Italian institutions, referred to this phenomenon as an “echo chamber,” in which a network of like-minded people share controversial theories, biased views, and selective news. That information is then simply repeated back to them and accepted as fact.

And this is what happened in the last Presidential election in the United States of America; the social media echo chambers gifted Donald Trump the presidency

A postmortem of the American election stated as follows; “Our tailored social media feeds not only hid from us the confused, angry people we needed to try and reason with, but it gave us a warped view of their motives. And this is where it gets particularly scary: Trump voters are fully aware he is sexist and xenophobic, they just don’t care.”

“The past few years have seen a seismic shift in public discourse. Amid the furious din of social media, only the most extreme opinions, stripped of nuance, will be heard, while so much of the media has been forced into similarly unsubtle coverage in the face of declining revenues and industry uncertainty.”

Back in June 2015, Barack Obama had this to say about the modern political landscape: “The problem is there is this big gap between who we are as a people and how our politics expresses itself. Part of that has to do with…a media that is so splintered now that we’re not in a common conversation. There is a profit, both for politicians and for news outlets, in simplifying and polarizing. All those things have combined to make our political institutions detached from how people live on a day-to-day basis.”

“When they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama , advised the Democratic National Convention,  “but we didn’t, did we? Whenever we talked about Trump, we used inflammatory language that, while seeming completely fitting for a human being as cruel and selfish as Trump, only served to put fire in the bellies of his supporters.”

I cannot give better examples of the negative power of echo chambers. The syndrome is reaching epidemic proportions among some politicians in Zambia. It is the tactic of the cartel to echo each other’s lies like Adolf Hitler and his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels with their big lie strategy.

Before the Zambians lose track of the real issues confronting the country, people that love this nation, whether in government or in other areas of leadership must counter the negative propaganda and discuss all issues with sober minds.

This country has never reached this stage of development before. We must look at the positive achievements and ride on them to enhance the quality of life for all Zambians.

Even those in power must guard against the dangers of becoming echo chambers by refusing to give room to citizens’ suggestions and only listening to their voices. The echo chamber syndrome can lead those in power into ignoring the concerns and complaints presented to them by the citizenry.

The dangers of the echo chamber syndrome are real and all Zambians must ignore those who “frequently plunge into hysteria, sensationalism and what one editor calls ‘a lynch mob syndrome.'”

Yours truly, Troubleshooter

ecchipalo@yahoo.co.uk /pentvision@gmail.com / ecchipalo@icloud.com