Media Bubbles Aren’t The Biggest Reason We’re Partisans

Maybe you call it a bubble. Maybe you call it a silo. Maybe you just call it an echo chamber. But whatever metaphorical, narrow and enclosed space you prefer, there’s a good chance you’ve been told that one of the great social problems of our time is Americans getting their political news from biased sources. Conservatives watch Fox News. Liberals watch MSNBC. The news tells us what we already believe and distorts reality around partisan talking points.

But here’s the thing: That’s not how it works. Turns out, news of our bloated, biased media diets has been greatly exaggerated. It could even be said that the “media bubble” narrative is … wait for it … fake news.

Last week, I wrote an article about how partisanship affects the way we interpret facts. Two people might see the same facts about the current impeachment investigation but interpret that news in wildly different ways. After that story ran, I got a lot of letters from folks who wanted to know how much of that effect was due to media bubbles. Sure, we interpret facts differently. But are we even getting the same facts?