City Research Online

Abstract

There has been considerable hype about filter bubbles and echo chambers influencing the views of information consumers. The fear is that these technologies are undermining democracy by swaying opinion and creating an uninformed, polarised populace. The literature in this space is mostly techno-centric, addressing the impact of technology. In contrast, our work is the first research in the information interaction field to examine changing viewpoints from a human-centric perspective. It provides a new understanding of view change and how we might support informed, autonomous view change behaviour. We interviewed 18 participants about a self-identified change of view, and the information touchpoints they engaged with along the way. In this paper we present the information types and sources that informed changes of viewpoint, and the ways in which our participants interacted with that information. We describe our findings in the context of the techno-centric literature and suggest principles for designing digital information environments that support user autonomy and reflection in viewpoint formation.

Publication Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information:	© McKay, D., Makri, S. , Guiterrez-Lopez, M, MacFarlane, A. , Missaoui, S., Porlezza, C. and Cooper, G. | ACM 2020. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record is published in Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR’20), https://doi.org/10.1145/3343413.3377975
Publisher Keywords:	Change of view, information interaction, attitude change, search, information encountering, filter bubbles, echo chambers
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity > Journalism School of Science & Technology > Computer Science School of Science & Technology > Computer Science > Human Computer Interaction Design

Export

Downloads