Why Echo Chambers are Useful

Ole Jann and Christoph Schottmuller

No 857, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: Why do people appear to forgo information by sorting into “echo chambers†? We construct a highly tractable multi-sender, multi-receiver cheap talk game in which players choose with whom to communicate. We show that segregation into small, homogeneous groups can improve everybody’s information and generate Pareto-improvements. Polarized preferences create a need for segregation; uncertainty about preferences magnifies this need. Using data from Twitter, we show several behavioral patterns that are consistent with the results of our model.

Keywords: Asymmetric Information; Echo Chambers; Polarization; Debate; Cheap Talk; Information Aggregation; Twitter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D82 D83 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth and nep-mic
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