The debate on whether digital technologies help bring politically different people
together or create isolated ideological communities is almost as old as the
Internet. Possibly the earliest formulation can be attributed to Van Alstyne and
Brynjolfsson (1996), who warned that information technologies could lead to
cyberbalkanization. Technology can “shrink geographic distances and facilitate
information exchange” (p. 3) thus creating a global village, but that was only one
possible outcome. They hypothesized that an alternative scenario would be one
where societies are more fragmented and interactions are balkanized because
“the Internet makes it easier to ﬁnd like-minded individuals,” which “can
facilitate and strengthen fringe communities that have a common ideology but
are dispersed geographically” (p. 5); and “once like-minded individuals locate
each other,” they conclude, “their subsequent interactions can further polarize
their views or even ignite calls-to-action” (p. 5).
Social_Media_and_Democracy