Online Radicalization

Although I am confused as to which reading/topic is this week, I want to talk about the radicalization of Zeke Spier article. In particular, I want to bring up the idea of radicalization through the internet. Specifically, I want to bring up an idea that the author brought up.

The article paraphrases Cass Sunstein by saying, "...the Internet is replacing the physical public space where citizens are exposed to different points of view with a private place where individuals withdraw into themselves and reinforce deeply held prejudices." One of the problems that I have with this idea is that people would be exposed to other ideas in the "real world", but not in the virtual world. In the virtual world, just like in the real world, people choose to associate with other like-minded people. People do not like to be challenged in the views, and instead like their opinions to be confirmed (don't you agree?) The internet can be used to so many things, including accessing knowledge that would otherwise be unavailable, such as political groups or national institutions. However, instead of looking at websites that disagree with their opinion, people choose to look at like-minded websites. Spier himself says that when he was doing research, he would look at an organization's official website, then 20 to 30 other protest group websites. That's 20-30 opinions that agree with his point of view, and maybe 1 that disagrees. Rather than use this vast resource to look at other points of view, Spier chooses to reinforce his own beliefs. Even within the protest groups, this tendency to join with like-minded individuals occurred, look at the affinity groups. People associate with like-minded individuals, both online and in "real life".

My point is that people associate with individuals who will agree with them, and this trend occurs both online and off. In this way, the internet is just another tool to find like-minded people, neither better nor worse than "real life" associations. Both will polarize people, since all people normally seek out are the same opinions as their own.