| 英文摘要: | Climate change continues to be a controversial issue among political elites in the US. New research shows how ideological views become entrenched through 'echo chambers'. In recent years, climate change has become a launch pad for much larger debates about who can claim scientific objectivity and authority in a democratic society. The social-scientific community has devoted a significant amount of energy to understand why the reality of anthropogenic climate change has become such a highly polarized issue, especially in the US. So what have we learned from all of this social science? Several notable things, which include (but are not limited to) the fact that the news media plays a critical role, that think-tanks exert influence through an organized counter-movement, and that political polarization in congress shapes how the issue is debated1, 2, 3. In Nature Climate Change, Lorien Jasny and colleagues4 now suggest that many social-scientific explanations like these rely on a mechanism called echo chambers. This mechanism remains informal and has not yet been tested empirically. The echo chamber concept describes the way in which information can be amplified and repeated within enclosed networks of ideologically similar individuals, leading to the further entrenchment of ideas and beliefs. People acquire and interpret information within their daily social networks. The structure of peoples' social worlds, and the range of information available within these worlds, can sometimes act to confirm what people already believe rather than encouraging open dialogue or critical reasoning. It does so by reinforcing and amplifying certain information, while at the same time shielding new or alternative information from penetrating communication lines between actors in the social network.
ANDREA IZZOTTI / ISTOCK / THINKSTOCK
Policymakers are likely to seek out and repeat viewpoints that are ideologically similar to their own, creating 'echo chambers' within institutions such as the United States' Congress.
- Akerlof, K., Rowan, K. E., Fitzgerald, D. & Cedeno, A. Y. Nature Clim. Change 2, 648–654 (2012).
- Jacques, P. J., Dunlap, R. E. & Freeman, M. Environ. Polit. 17, 349–385 (2008).
- Fisher, D. R., Waggle, J. & Liefeld, P. Am. Behav. Sci. 57, 70–92 (2013).
- Jasny, L., Waggle, J. & Fisher, D. Nature Clim. Change 5, 782–786 (2015).
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Affiliations
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Justin Farrell is in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
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