Echo chamber and trench warfare dynamics in online debates

2017/04/03 by Rune Karlsen, Kari Steen‐Johnsen, Dag Wollebæk +1 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Media Influence and Politics #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Social Media and Politics

paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/0267323117695734

openalex publication_date 2017/04/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/12

Abstract

In this article, we take issue with the claim by Sunstein and others that online discussion takes place in echo chambers, and suggest that the dynamics of online debates could be more aptly described by the logic of 'trench warfare', in which opinions are reinforced through contradiction as well as confirmation. We use a unique online survey and an experimental approach to investigate and test echo chamber and trench warfare dynamics in online debates. The results show that people do indeed claim to discuss with those who hold opposite views from themselves. Furthermore, our survey experiments suggest that both confirming and contradicting arguments have similar effects on attitude reinforcement. Together, this indicates that both echo chamber and trench warfare dynamics - a situation where attitudes are reinforced through both confirmation and disconfirmation biases - characterize online debates. However, we also find that two-sided neutral arguments have weaker effects on reinforcement than one-sided confirming and contradicting arguments, suggesting that online debates could contribute to collective learning and qualification of arguments.

Citations

• Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
• The Spiral of Silence a Theory of Public Opinion
• Encountering “Difference” in the Contemporary Public Sphere: The Contribution of the Internet to the Heterogeneity of Political Discussion Networks
• Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
• Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use

Cited by

• Asymmetric Alliances in Climate Misinformation: A Network Analysis of the Swedish Climate Change Countermovement
• Revealing Political Bias in LLMs through Structured Multi-Agent Debate

Discussions

• There is also another reason. The following study shows that the character limits and forms of interactions on social media often lead towards a type of communication that looks more like trench warfa [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

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