Bursting the bubble: Dutch print media's perception of "the filter bubble"

Abstract

[""The aim of this paper was to discover what Dutch newspapers have written about the concept “filter bubble” and how this discourse has changed over time and across different newspapers. A critical discourse analysis was applied to a dataset collected from the database of Nexis Uni, concerning three Dutch newspapers: de Volkskrant, NRC, and Trouw. Results indicated that the concept filter bubble was frequently used in newspaper articles without any explanation. More in-depth newspaper articles were critical about social media and the role that the filter bubble played in spreading fake news. Many articles did not differentiate between the concepts filter bubble and echo chamber. The analysis showed a change in the discourse over time. At first, many articles expressed concerns about the filter bubble, but from 2019 onwards the general attitude in the discourse appeared to become more nuanced. Overall, the discourse was quite similar across the three newspapers. Future research could focus on other (Dutch) newspapers to see how these results compare to the current findings.""]