As a society, we follow people on Facebook and Twitter who share similar values to our own, and as our digital worlds become more filtered and personalized, our perspectives become impenetrable echo chambers and inflexible to new ideas.
In 2018, we will see a shift towards trying to break down those filter bubbles and better understand areas outside of our own biases and interests.
One version of this could be reading an array of news sources, encouraging readers to explore topics outside of their normal interest, or having social platforms alter their algorithms to expose users to content that doesn’t fit to what they are used to seeing. What if there was a way we could encourage organizations and readers to be more well-rounded in their news habits and challenge their typical media behaviors?
Ultimately, this accountability for changing the cycle of echo chambers is a fragmented mix of readers, media organizations, and social media platforms. Along with news organizations, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media must come to terms with how they impact the polarization of society on many levels. At the crux of this issue, the reader must understand the role that they play in creating their own echo chamber.
What if we thought about news and media the same way we think about nutrition? What would be considered a healthy news diet? What would be the ideal news behaviors and habits for a well-rounded reader? I can see a future space in media, where our predictions as an organization are tied to showing a diverse array of opinions and user-generated content on an issue and we build this type of logic into the core of the product. Media platforms like Facebook could flag certain articles as being opinion content versus fact, so readers would be aware that they are reading something with a bias. Platforms could also share user reading patterns or behaviors with the users themselves. Users could then keep track of how many articles they read on a certain topic or perspective and have a better sense of it reflected the population as a whole or just their immediate echo chamber.
Is it up to publications to decide? Or is this responsibility on journalists and readers? Our last public editor, Liz Spayd, wrote that The New York Times “has proclaimed a public commitment to reflecting a broader range of perspectives in its pages,” citing “the general principle of busting up the mostly liberal echo chamber around here.” We have also created a part of the organization called The Reader Center which aims to capitalize on hearing from our diverse array of readers and their opinions by gathering feedback and using more user-generated content. These are steps towards moving away from a polarization in an organizational sense, though there is certainly more we can do to help readers from operating within echo chambers.
Overall, though, the responsibility is split. All actors involved must play a part in dismantling the frameworks and bubbles that we have played a part in creating. In 2018, breaking down our filter bubbles and echo-chambers will not be solved by the actions of one, rather it needs to be tackled in a cross-functional effort by all parties involved: news organizations, social media platforms, and, most importantly, our readers.
Hannah Cassius is a product manager at The New York Times.
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Nik Usher The year of The Washington Post
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Carrie Brown Transparency finally takes off
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you