I was hoping to have a link to a research paper or report to backup some of what I’m about to claim, but alas, the radio interview that is prompting these thoughts happened perhaps two years ago and I can’t seem to search-up (google or bing -up) the right results. I did find a nice blog entry and Wikipedia has a good definition for Confirmation Bias. Nevertheless…

People come to the internet with an established view on a particular topic. We do not care precisely what the topic is, but suffice it to say, that it is one that the Internet user has some knowledge about, perhaps would like to know more about, and has some preconceived notions about. When they come to the Internet with their question, they punch it into a search engine and get back a few hundred results.

They read the headlines and queue in on the ones that match their preconceptions. They may click on a few that are not in agreement with what they believe is true, but they feel compelled to check them out also. The vast array of disagreeing sites are as a hydra, too numerous, and in this case too varied, for our Internet-searcher to make much sense out of. In the end, they are most likely not persuaded by any of them (mostly because they are all lumped into one category of “opposing views” and the single category of “my view” has some definite, clear, coherent representation).

The result? People find what they already know on the Internet. This is how forums become so mono-thought-esque and this is why people shout-down or ignore opposing views that appear in their specialized forums. This is, of course, a generalization, but a prevalent pattern.
I point this out because it is a re-presentation of a fundamental pair of challenges that the Internet faced when it was just the World Wide Web. Social Media offers some ways to alleviate the problem, but not many.

1. How do you find a trusted voice for your point of view? That is, how can you be sure that you have a valid point of view and have found on the Internet someone who represents it with reason and balanced judgment?
2. Second, very similar to the first, and indeed necessary to satisfy the first point, how can you find balanced, well-reasoned opposition claims to the view point you are searching for? There are simply too many views that do not agree to single out the few that are perhaps actually challenging to your perspective, when considered.

To put it another way, to solve #1 you need #2. To solve #2, currently, you need to read through a lot of information and most people simply do not have time for that. As a result, they tend to form their opinion off-line and validate it online.

The result is online communities that are essentially echo chambers in which opposition perspectives have a very tough time gaining any sort of traction. Is this a bad thing? Well… not really, so long as you don’t think that your online community is some sort of truth-broker.

Social media offers some methods by which you can more easily find valid voices of agreement and opposition by creating continuity of relationships. If you can find one person with well-reasoned arguments for or against your position, chances are that they only dialog with like-quality people. If they disagree online, they most likely will do so at the same level at which they argue for their position. Thus, if you try to find valid opposition, find those who disagree with your initial social network contact on the subject matter.

Spidering along the social web, you should be able to find a much smaller set of points of view with higher quality arguments. The problem them becomes finding only that entry person, something you could perhaps accomplish in the “real” world and take online.

One last thought: Malcom Gladwell rightly points out in Tipping Point that there are different people who serve different roles in societies. He breaks them up into three groups one of which are Mavens and the other of which are Connectors. The Mavens are the subject matter experts whose opinions you want. The Connectors are social butterflies looking to bring together people. If you can find not only a subject matter expert who argues at the level you are looking at, but if you can identify who among his connections is a Connector-type of person, you will have a fabulous initial sub-network of people to read for opinions.