04. 迴聲室 = 民主

"A democracy needs such “echo chambers,” even though their discussions inevitably appear like nothing but a bunch of homogenous supporters rah-rah-ing each other.”
「民主需要『迴聲室』，即使他們的討論似乎只是一堆同質性支持者的相濡以沫。」

Talking together is the fundamental political act. While the Internet is certainly providing new features and new forums for talk, it is not transforming the near-genetic basics of how human conversation works. In this case (despite the overall premise of this anthology), the technology isn’t changing the nature of democracy so much as clarifying our understanding of democracy. And that may be no less important.
彼此交談，是最基礎的政治行為。雖然網際網路替交談提供了新功能和新的場所，但它並沒有改變人類對話的運作基礎。在這種情況下，技術並沒有改變民主的本質，而是釐清我們對於民主的理解。這可能是同樣重要的。

Our confusion about the role of conversation in democracy is manifested in the persistence of the question whether the Net is enhancing or dismantling the political conversations we think essential to democracy. Rather than opening us up to a wider range of opinion, is the Internet barricading the doors of belief? Will we use the fact that we have more control online to hang out exclusively with people like ourselves, or will we use the frictionlessness of web connectivity to engage with people from different walks of life? Will the Internet become an enhanced public forum or a set of “echo chambers?”
我們對於對話在民主裡扮演的角色的困惑，表現在一個持續存在的疑問：網路是強化、抑或削弱了我們認為對於民主至關重要的政治對話。網路是開啟了更廣泛的意見表達、還是築起理念的障礙？我們會運用網路的控制能力、只跟與我們類似的人在一起？或是透過網路連結的無摩擦特性，與那些不同的人接觸？網路會成為一個增強的公共論壇？或僅是一個個「迴聲室」(echo chambers)？

We’ve been unable to resolve these questions for three reasons.
因為三個因素，我們一直都無法解決這些問題。

First, the Net is too young and is not yet what it will be. We don’t know what effect it will have once its first generation of users has grown up with it as a ubiquitous part of civic life.
首先，網路還太年輕，還沒有發展成熟。當第一代的網路使用者長大、並運用網路作為公民生活的一部分時，我們不知道網路會產生什麼樣的影響。

Second, the empirical research that exists is extraordinarily hard to interpret. Do we look at the patterns of links between websites? That doesn’t necessarily tell us how the information flows. Do results vary based on topic? Over time? By demographic? Perhaps we form echo chambers around political candidates but not cultural topics. Around TV shows but not movies. Around reality TV shows but not sitcoms? When we link to people with whom we disagree, are we cursing insensibly at them or engaging in a rational back-and-forth?
第二，現存的實證研究是非常難以詮釋的。我們看過網站之間的連結模式嗎？那並不足以說明資訊的流動方式。結果會依據議題而有不同？或是依循時間演變？會有地域區別？也許我們是圍繞著候選人、電視節目、實境秀形成迴聲室，而不是文化議題、電影和情境喜劇？當我們連結到我們不喜歡的人的時候，我們是咒罵他們、還是理性對話？

Third, even if we knew which vectors to follow, we would still have the enormously difficult task of comparing the results to the state of openness in the real world. As Yochai Benkler, the author of The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, says, the question is not whether the Net will make our political discourse perfect, but will it make it better. The law professor Cass Sunstein reports that only low double digit percentages of links point to opposing viewpoints, and Benkler is right in responding that he doesn’t know whether that’s a cause for rejoicing or despair. To what could we compare such statistics? To the percentage of space newspapers give over to views that oppose their editorial positions? Typically, that’s a few Op-Ed columns and some percentage of the half-page of Letters-to-the-Editor that papers run. How often do people read the columnists they disagree with? How much time in the day do you spend talking rationally and calmly about matters of state with people with whom you disagree? How deep does the disagreement have to go before you are too angry to talk, or simply see no point in pursuing the discussion? Have you ever actually sat down for a long, respectful conversation with a neo-Nazi or an out-of-the-closet racist, a conversation in which you’re open to having your ideas changed?
第三，即使我們知道該依循哪些方向，我們仍然很難將結果與現實世界裡的開放程度做比較。《網絡財富：社會性產製如何改變市場與自由》(The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom)的作者 Yochai Benkle 曾表示，問題不在於網路是否讓我們的政治對話變得完美，而是在於能否將它變得更好。法學教授 Cass Sunstein 的報告則指出，僅有很低的兩位數字百分比的連結，會指向相反的觀點。Benkler 對此的反應是對的，他表示他不知道這樣是好還是壞。我們可以把這些統計數據跟什麼做比較呢？報紙提供給與其編輯立場相左的觀點的報導版面的比例？通常，報紙是有一些意見評論專欄、以及讀者來函的版面。人們常常會閱讀那些他們不認同的專欄嗎？你一天會花多少時間、理性且冷靜地與你意見相反的人討論國家事務？彼此間的不贊同要到什麼樣的程度、或是發現在討論裡沒有重點，就會讓你憤怒地停止對話？你曾經坐下來和新納粹份子或種族主義者進行長時間、有禮貌的、願意改變自己的想法的對話嗎？

Me neither.
我沒有。

The question, therefore, is not whether the Internet is closing us down or opening us up, but rather what assumptions make the persistence of online echo chambers—the same kinds of cliquish gatherings that have always existed on land—seem simultaneously so urgent and so hard to resolve.
因此，問題並不在於網路是讓我們變得開放或封閉，而在於是什麼樣的假設，使得網路迴聲室的存在 - 類似的小團體一直存在於實體世界 - 變得如此急迫、亟需處理。

This urgency is undergirded by our belief that democracy is a conversational form of governance. It’s not enough (we believe) that everyone gets to vote. Everyone also has to be able to talk about her beliefs in public so that those beliefs can be well informed and well reasoned. Yet when we look out across the Net, rather than seeing people engaged in deep conversation, we see clusters of people saying the most godawful things and, in so doing, giving permission to others to say even godawfuller things. There’s no denying the despair we all feel when turning over certain rocks on the Net. Hearing sentiments that are forbidden from the real world public sphere uttered in the perceived privacy of the Internet legitimates those sentiments. This is worse than an echo chamber: It is a room full of people egging each other on to the most extreme and vile opinions. “You think you hate her? Here’s how much I hate her...” is not a helpful trope in a democracy.
我們的信念強化了這種急迫感：我們相信民主是一種治理的對話形式。每個人都能投票，並不足夠，還需要每個人都能公開地暢談他們的想法，讓這些想法可以被充分得知與討論。然而當我們觀看網路，我們並沒有看到人們在進行深度的對話，而是許多群人在講非常糟糕的事情，導致別人也如法炮製、講出更難聽的話。當我們看到網路上這些負面的事情時，我們並不否認對此感到失望。在現實世界裡的公共領域裡，是禁止表達情感的，但是這些情感卻可在網路裡發聲。這裡迴聲室更糟：這是一個擠滿人的房間，人們用最極端、最污穢的言語彼此對幹。「你認為你討厭她？我告訴你我有多恨她...」並不是一個民主社會裡有用的修辭。

It would be foolish to argue that this never happens. But how much does it happen? How important are such echo chambers? What influence do they have on our democracy? And why have so many people focused on them as the example of the Net’s effect on democracy? After all, we could look at hateful real-world groups and despair for our democracy, but we recognize that such groups are the evil we have to live with in order to get the benefits of our freedom to assemble and to speak.
若有人認為這種狀況永遠不會發生，這是很愚蠢的想法。但是，發生的頻率如何？這種迴聲室的重要性是什麼？對於我們的民主會有什麼影響？為什麼有許多人把這種狀況視為網路對於民主的影響？畢竟，我們也可以去看看真實世界裡那些充滿憎恨的團體，然後對我們的民主感到絕望。但是我們知道，這些團體是我們必須容忍其存在的邪惡，以保有集會與言論自由的益處。

Echo chambers loom large in our thinking about the Web, not just in our thinking about democracy. In part it’s because some of the echo chambers appear on highly popular sites. Thus, they are not equivalent to marginalized extremist groups such as the KKK or the Stormfront White Nationalist Community. Yet not all echo chambers are born equal. Shouldn’t supporters of a candidate have a spot on the Web where they can be supporters together? Is a site an echo chamber if it fails to rigorously challenge its participants’ every view, including a supporter’s most basic commitment to his or her candidate?
迴聲室的印象深印在我們對於網路的看法，而不只是針對民主。部分是因為有些迴聲室出現在非常熱門的網站，因此，它們就不同於那些邊緣的極端團體，例如三K黨或Stormfront白人國族社群(Stormfront White Nationalist Community)。並非所有的迴聲室都是一樣的。某個候選人的支持者不應該有個網站、讓他們可以凝聚在一起嗎？如果網站無法嚴格地挑戰其參與者的每種觀點，包括支持者對於候選人的基本信念，它就是迴聲室嗎？

Further, the most prominent political sites—other than candidates’ sites—are not all the hatefests they’re often portrayed as by the media. Yes, participants encourage one another in their beliefs, but not all of them are devoted to ever-tightening spirals of hatred. At the progressive site HuffingtonPost.com, reasonable disagreements are common. Present a calm argument against the progressive viewpoint of an article, and you’re likely to find just the sort of vigorous debate we want for a healthy democracy, although it may be more rough and tumble than we’d imagined. Trolls and hand-grenade throwers are ignored, flamed, or moderated out, because, by definition, they’re not looking for a genuine discussion. Likewise, at the conservative Redstate.com, reasonable discussion is the norm. (You can find plenty of examples of awful interchanges, but you can find plenty examples of everything on the Net.)
此外，最重要的政治性網站 - 競選網站之外 - 並非都是媒體所形容地那樣充滿憎恨。是的，參與者會支持彼此的信念，但是並非所有人都希望加深憎恨的螺旋。在進步的 HuffingtonPost.com 裡，常常可以見到理智的反對意見。針對某篇文章的進步觀點表達了冷靜的反面意見，可能就會產生我們期待健康的民主所需要的、充滿活力的辯論，就算它可能比我們所預想的要雜亂無章。耍白爛或來搗蛋的人會被忽略、圍勦或趕出去，因為他們不是真的要來討論的。同樣地，在保守的 Redstate.com 裡，理性討論也是常態。（你可以找到許多糟糕的例子，但是，這是因為你可以在網路上可以找到任何事情的大量案例。）

Our picture of the Net as a set of hateful echo chambers is encouraged, too, by the premise that the only sites that matter are those with hundreds of thousands of readers. That’s how the mainstream media works. But the Web is characterized by a “long tail” of sites with relatively few readers. The echo chamber dynamic is facilitated by sites so large that the commenters are functionally unknown to one another, and the way to get attention is to be more outrageous than the previous person. That dynamic is missing on the smaller sites that, in aggregate, constitute the bulk of web traffic.
我們把網路當成許多充滿憎恨迴聲室的想法，也是受到擁有許多讀者的網站才算重要的前提所影響。這是主流媒體的運作方式。但是網站的特色之一，是讀者人數相對較少的「長尾」(long tail)網站。迴聲室的促成因素是由於網站過大、發言的人基本上是互不相識，而引起注意的方式是比前一個人更蠻橫無禮。這種動能在小型網站上就不見了，但是大量的小網站匯聚起來就是龐大的網站流量。

Nevertheless, our focus on echo chambers, our notion that they typify Net dialogue, and our taking them at their worst, tell us something: Our image of what a democracy should sound like is misconceived.
因此，我們對於迴聲室的焦點、認為它們代表了網路上的對話、舉出其中最糟糕的例子，反而告訴我們一些事：我們對於民主應該如何的設想，其實是錯誤的。

For example, while we can map the links going into and out of a site, and we can analyze the political positions of people who write posts or comment on them, there is little actual data about the readers of these sites. Perhaps the readers are diverse, even though the writers and linkers are fairly homogeneous. Perhaps data would show that in fact we’ve achieved the democratic ideal on the Web after all: People of all persuasions are reading sites of every persuasion.
舉例來說，我們可以描繪一個網站的連入與連出的連結，我們可以分析寫文章或回應的人的政治立場，但卻僅有很少的實際資料，是關於這些網站的讀者。也許儘管寫的人和網站的連結具有相當的同質性，但是讀者可能卻是包羅萬象。也許資料會顯示出，終究我們還是在網站上達成了民主的理想：不同理念的人，正在閱讀各種不同意見的網站。

Pretty lame, eh? Sounds like I’m grasping at straws to defend the Net? I agree. In fact, that’s my point. The previous paragraph is unconvincing because we all agree that people generally don’t spend a lot of time reading that with which they disagree. We know that, on-or offline conversation simply doesn’t work that way. Never did. Never will. Conversation finds an area of agreement and then explores the differences. It hardly ever in our lives is an isolated exercise of pure, unfettered rationality in which we suspend core beliefs in order to think again about what those beliefs ought to be. Even taking that as an ideal requires a picture of rationality that is unrealistic. Pure reason is a better corrective than architect.
嗯，很沒有說服力？聽起來像是在為網路做無力的辯駁？我同意。事實上，這就是我的論點。上一段話很沒有說服力，因為我們都同意人們通常不會花許多時間來閱讀他們所不認同的東西。我們很清楚，不論是網路上或真實世界裡的討論，根本不是這樣進行的。以前不會，以後也不會。對話需要發現一個認同的場域，然後才會探索差異。純粹的、沒有束縛的理性實驗是很難發生的，我們難以暫時關閉我們的核心信念，以重新思考這些信念是否應然。即使將其視為一種理性的理想，也是不切實際的。

So, what good does conversation really do in a democracy? It helps us work out differences based upon shared ground. Conversations shape our existing ideas and occasionally generate new ideas that are in line with our existing beliefs. We can probably count the times on one hand that conversation changes our minds about anything important.
那麼，到底對話真的為民主做出什麼貢獻呢？它幫助我們根據共同的基礎，來理解其中的差異。對話能雕塑我們目前的想法、有時可以產生與我們的信念一致的新看法。我們可以用一支手來數數看，對話改變了我們的重要信念的次數。

That doesn’t mean conversation is irrelevant or trivial. Even when conversation doesn’t change minds, it serves other social roles, including binding people together so they can engage in effective political action building trust, community and political commitment. From the outside that may look like an echo chamber, but that is how people come to make common cause. A democracy needs such “echo chambers,” even though their discussions inevitably appear like nothing but a bunch of homogenous supporters rah-rah-ing each other. Conversation among people who are in basic agreement builds relationships and foments political movement. It also makes possible the rare conversion of beliefs, and, when done in the public forum of the Net, it leaves traces by which opposing views can understand—and thus tolerate— one another better.
這並不意味著對話是不相干、或無關緊要的。即使對話無法改變心靈，卻仍有其他社會功能，包括讓人們聚集在一起，讓他們參與有效的政治行動，建立信任、社群和政治承諾。從外部看來，或許只是像個迴聲室，但卻是人們建立共同信念的方式。民主需要這樣的「迴聲室」，即使他們的討論似乎只是一堆同質性支持者的相濡以沫。在擁有基本認同的人群中的對話，可以建立關係、引發政治行動。它也可以產生罕見的信念轉移，而且，當這些是在網路上的公共討論空間完成時，它會留下可供相反意見的人進行查考的蹤跡 - 因此而能更好地彼此理解、甚至包容。

The persistence of “echo chambers” on the Net is not a failure of democracy. Rather, their continued existence is evidence not only of the fractures in our society, but of the gap between our ideals of democracy and the mechanics of human social intercourse. We are never able to stand fully apart from our commitments in order to evaluate them in the cool light of rationality. If the Net does nothing but help us accept the primacy of standpoint over reason—while leaving reason some footholds in the wall of belief—it will have done our democracy the valuable service of making it more realistic.
網路上的「迴聲室」，並不是民主的失敗。相反地，它們的持續存在，不僅代表我們社會裡的裂痕，也證明了我們對於民主的理想和人類社會互動的機制之間的差距。我們永遠無法與我們的信念完全分離，以在理性的冷靜燈光下進行審視。如果網路可以幫助我們接受立場總是勝過理性的事實，同時還能保留一些理性的空間，網路已經藉由讓民主變得更為實際可行、為我們的民主做出有價值的貢獻了。