Thinking about how online communication and culture has changed, I remember seeing a family member comment on a politician’s photo on Facebook. It was meant to be a form of direct communication, but what my family member didn’t comprehend was the fact that it was really a message to everyone on their timeline. This family member, instead of learning to avoid posting contentious opinions, chose to delete all family and friends from social media who disagreed with them. Many who grew up with communication being far more private still struggle with this change to public forums, and even those who grew up with it must be constantly aware of how their words could be used against them. Online communication of both jokes and serious opinions must now have consideration of a global audience of strangers, greatly affecting how social media users think and form opinions and in-turn become more radicalized.
Social media users are able to be either validated or verbally attacked by thousands in mere minutes. This dynamic either regulates the online behaviour of those who disagree with the status quo, or it entrenches the beliefs of those who get instant positive feedback about what they post. When a user finds a community that they find is agreeable to their beliefs, they tend to become far more engaged and confident in expressing these ideas. This behavioural trait identified by Bandura (2011) is linked to lesser influence of environmental social anxieties as noted by Deaton (2015). Users are able to feel a greater sense of self-efficacy, and therefore can become more attached and confident to their beliefs. Unfortunately, Shlegal (2019) points to how this can also be a key factor in the radicalization of terrorists through these online spaces, as users can create an echo chamber of like-minded individuals with little diversity of thought. Even if these spaces do not lead directly to terrorism, they can still be attributed to the increasing polarization of left and right-wing politics and the radicalization of these ideas.
How the radicalization of these ideas looks among the population of internet users can be found in the video below. The TedTalk by Kaustav Mukherjee explains how algorithms take advantage of this desire for a like-minded online space.
References:
Bandura, A. (2011). Chapter 17: Social cognitive theory. In P. A. M. van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychological Theories (pp. 349-373). London: Sage.
Deaton, S. (2015). Social Learning Theory in the Age of Social Media: Implications for Educational Practitioners. I-Manager’s Journal Of Educational Technology, 12(1), 1-6. doi: 10.26634/jet.12.1.3430
Schlegel, L. (2019). “Yes, I can”: what is the role of perceived self-efficacy in violent online-radicalisation processes of “homegrown” terrorists?. Dynamics Of Asymmetric Conflict, 13(3), 212-229. doi: 10.1080/17467586.2019.1700539
“Online communication of both jokes and serious opinions must now have consideration of a global audience of strangers, greatly affecting how social media users think and form opinions and in-turn become more radicalized.”
I’m not sure I agree with this statement, which runs counter to the rest of the post. It seems to me that the opposite would be true: if all opinions need to be self-censored in light of the broad audience that will see them, this would surely result in *less* radicalization and an increase in vanilla opinions and platitudes that are deliberately phrased so as *not* to cause offence.
As Liam goes on to say, the radicalization comes in when people feel more free to express more extreme opinions, safe in the knowledge that their views, however extreme, will be shared by their online echo chamber.