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Patmos Rhodes

What’s a ‘Media Bubble’ Anyway? Here’s What You Need to Know

  • William Romanowski
  • Jan 3
  • 5 min read

January 2025

(5-minute read)

Keywords: media bubble; confirmation bias; illusion of explanatory depth; algorithm; echo chamber; media literate



New media is always heralded as a boom for democratic discourse. From the printing press and newspapers to radio and television and the internet, every new communication technology holds promise of widening and deepening conversation and participation of ordinary people in government decision making.[i]


Despite the plethora of online sources for news and information – not to mention entertainment – a prominent, if also unsettling feature of social media is how it exploits the way humans acquire and use knowledge to understand the world around them. Social media energizes and amplifies these tendencies, in effect blowing them up into media bubbles. Instead of engaging in vigorous discussion and debate, people are dwelling in self-confined online universes of like-minded strangers. Have you heard the proverb about the best laid plans?


By definition, a media bubble is

“an environment in which one’s exposure to news, entertainment, social media, etc., represents only one ideological or cultural perspective and excludes or misrepresents other points of view.” 

I want to use this blog post to describe the basic features of a media bubble as I understand it. Let’s start with …


Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to accept – and even seek – information that reinforces preexisting views, and on the flip side, to discount evidence that contradicts them. It stems from a basic human trait: people are inclined to believe whatever they want to believe.

 

To put it another way, confirmation bias “occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs,” according to a writer in Psychology Today.

“When people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking.”

In other words, confirmation bias is a type of self-deception that can make people feel overly confident in what they believe.


This effect is known as …


The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

The illusion of explanatory depth becomes apparent when people start believing they know more than they actually do. Familiarity with a subject is enough to believe they have a thorough understanding, whether about education, health care, or climate change.

 

I once said something to a plumber about how feeble my do-it-yourself attempts were in comparison to his expertise. He looked me in the eye and said, “Remember what Dirty Harry said in Magnum Force: ‘A man’s got to know his limitations.’” Truer words have never been spoken. It’s easy enough to claim to know how a toilet works, until it breaks and has to be fixed.


It’s easy to see how overconfidence can lead to a strong opinion, at least you’d think, until they have to defend their position with reasons and a cogent argument. But as researchers have observed, even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” which goes to prove the old saying, you can lead a horse to water …

 

The illusion of explanatory depth only increases with awareness that others hold the same views, regardless of whether they are based on knowledge or information that is faulty or baseless. A good place to talk about …


Algorithms

I’m sure you’ve heard about algorithms, computer lingo referring basically to “lists of instructions that determine how programs read, collect, process, and analyze data to generate output.” Social media platforms use algorithms to rank and filter content according to prior preferences feed, selecting specific information based on previous personal choices. That, in turn, makes the website more appealing to advertisers.


By making decisions for us about what we are likely to want to watch online, social media networks shape our media experience,. Looking at my Facebook Feed you’d think the only “friends” I have any more are online retail items – and the producers of stupid videos (just click on one and …). Algorithms have been criticized as a method for exhibiting biases based on preexisting social, cultural, and political expectations leading to race, gender, sex, and disability discrimination. The effect is to create …


Echo Chambers

An echo chamber is a media environment that constantly reinforces the preexisting outlook of like-minded people, that is, what they already believe. Claim statements are repeated over and over again, echoing, creating the impression that some variation of the story must be true, especially in the absence of any counterarguments. Those dwelling in an echo chamber share opinions and algorithm-based news feeds. If this makes people feel more confident about their opinions, it also isolates them, limiting exposure to other perspectives.


Recent studies conducted by social scientists show a troubling tendency among people in echo chambers to become more extreme in their views. They also discovered that “getting them out of these echo chambers would moderate their views and reduce polarization.” That points to the need to advance media literacy in our homes and as part of the public curriculum so to speak.


Conclusion

Together, these features of media bubbles create a false optimism about a person’s outlook. Seen through the filters of our own assumptions, the world becomes a mere reflection of what we already believe – or want to believe. Such a mindset can lead to a sanctimonious attitude and the caricaturing, and even demonizing, of those holding contrary viewpoints.


Navigating today’s decentralized media can be challenging. But hopefully, with awareness and a desire to pursue sure knowledge, we can take steps to become more media literate.


Let’s start the new year off by breaking out our media bubbles.


If you enjoy this article, I encourage you to share it with friends and visit my website for others like it.


Footnotes

[i] An NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) Internet Use Survey revealed that “13 million more people used the Internet in the United States in 2023 compared with just two years earlier.”

  • 83 percent of people ages 3 and older in the United States used the Internet in some fashion in 2023.

  • Internet adoption also increased among those in lower-income households, from 69 percent in 2021 to 73 percent in 2023 among those in households making less than $25,000 per year.

The increase among lover-income households can be attributed to government initiatives like the Affordable Connectivity Program (part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) that provide financial assistance and discounts to low-income families to pay for internet service.


Take a Moment to Read

  • What Is Media Literacy And Why Is It Important? In sum, memes, viral videos, text messages, and social media posts. We don’t always know who created something, why, or whether it’s credible. This article at Common Sense Media explains that media literacy is “the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they’re sending,” and offers helpful bullet-point suggestions.

  • Navigating the Media Landscape: Understanding the Impact and Evolution of Media.

    A short CMIT Solutions blog post that provides a working vocabulary for digital media as “an omnipresent force that shapes our thoughts, opinions, and even our actions.”

  • Pop the Filter Bubble. An article at Avid Open Access to help “recognize filter bubbles and the impact they have on our information universe,” including a list of suggestions on “popping” them.

 

Photo Credits (in order of appearance)


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William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading "footnotes for fiction," writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes.


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