Is that an echo I hear...?

The crushing disappointment felt by countless people after the US election has led many to question how left-leaning media pundits were so frequently and disastrously wrong in their predictions.

Disillusionment with the mainstream media saw a massive rise in the popularity of political blogs like Daily Kos and Eschaton, and if you paid a pre-election visit to such sites you would be forgiven for thinking that Kerry had the election all but sewn up.

There was a very real and overwhelming sense of optimism that the truth would prevail, and that Bush’s days were numbered.

What’s more, people were coming together online in unprecedented numbers to discuss, challenge, and repudiate the grinding propaganda of the right wing mainstream media.

There’s nothing like the bitter taste of defeat, however, to put the kibosh on idealism.

Is the internet, people are beginning to ask, merely an enormous, resounding echo chamber?

(An echo chamber, by definition, is a room with sound-reflecting walls used for producing hollow or echoing sound effects).

It's well known that the internet is a place where like-minded people can gather to talk, discuss, vent, and rage with others who feel the same way.

But does cyberspace simply take and amplify a million voices all saying the same thing - until all that is heard are variations on the same theme - with no real diversity of opinion or genuine attempts at understanding another’s viewpoint?

Does it widen the ideological and intellectual gap between the right and the left, the red and the blue, the north and the south?

Or does it rally together those with the same values, regardless of geography, state, country or class and give them a chance for expression, mobilization and action?

Salon journalist Andrew Leonard wrote an interesting opinion piece on the temptations (and disappointments) of the echo chamber and some of the letters he received in response were illuminating.

There was a general feeling that people now needed to listen beyond the echo, and work to see their way clear of the spin:

"...It's not just that we in our bubbles end up shocked at the outcome of the election — it's that we don't have thoughtful, intellectually honest discussions with people who think differently. The candidates don't, the pundits don't, the activists don't, and the voters don't. Instead, many of us dig in, use only facts that support our views, jump to conclusions without clear evidence, oversimplify, dismiss those who disagree, and then complain that democracy is in serious trouble.