ABSTRACT

This chapter engages with the recent debate over cocooning and “filter bubbles” and their impact on democratic deliberation and public culture. Such discussions have tended to focus on the range of political content available to users rather than on the crucial question of how this information is received and used. A wide range of information is necessary, but not sufficient, for participating in democratic deliberation, and much hangs on the formation of a “civic disposition” that facilitates good faith debate and a willingness to adopt the perspective of others. As recent political developments have demonstrated, the challenge to democracy is not a lack of information but rather a hardening anti-civic disposition that undermines the conditions for meaningful deliberation. This chapter considers the role that automated customization of news and information plays in eroding the forms of recognition and community without which the benefits of increased information access go unrealized (and are transformed into liabilities).