Technical jargon: What does "echo chamber" actually mean?

Writing a column about technical terms in a professional publication that is read exclusively by professionals is probably one of the simplest ways to describe an echo chamber. But it can also be more complicated: echo chambers, sometimes also called filter bubbles, information bubbles or living worlds, are psychological as well as acoustic phenomena.The latter are familiar to everyone who once tried to start a music career and equipped their basement rooms with egg cartons without knowing exactly why. These echo chambers were invented at Abbey Road Studios in London long before the Beatles made the place famous. They served a form of sound design to break up sound waves and give more space to the dry, pure tones of the studio. In psychology, an echo chamber creates a virtual space where people find information that reinforces their existing views.

Advertising as an echo chamber

With the advent of social media and digitization, echo chambers have become a phenomenon that are hugely important for marketing and communications to understand how to communicate. In advertising, it is true that echo chambers were a widespread phenomenon even before the existence of social media. But this was more because campaigns were designed to outdo competing agencies with even funnier ideas than for the people who would end up buying the advertised products. People moved in the echo chamber of the industry, so to speak, and rewarded each other with awards.

More than a marketing phenomenon

Today, however, echo chambers are also making big waves beyond the industry. Since Trump's election as American president, Brexit and other votes, we know that opinions in our personal environment do not necessarily reflect the "whole" truth, but appear as such when reflected thousands of times. With the help of social media algorithms, we now choose - consciously or unconsciously - to interact in just such echo chambers, filter bubbles and information bubbles with people who think and act in the same way as we do. And in the end, we are amazed that outside of our life worlds, beings still exist who have completely different opinions than we do. If we ever come into contact with them, however, we do not understand them. And this is then not an acoustic problem.