Internet Not Guilty

David Brooks, a quasi-conservative writer for The New York Times, loves the findings of social science and what they tell us about our polity. Here he shares some research findings that appear to show that the Internet is not guilty of making us more polarized. While I'm not entirely convinced, the article is nevertheless interesting and thought-provoking.

The researchers Brooks cites find that we actually encounter viewpoints we don't share on the web. An example that occurs to me is on the conservative site Lucianne.com it is not uncommon to find someone posting link to a Frank Rich, Joe Klein or Maureen Dowd column.

Similarly, we sometimes find links to work by MSM liberals on RealClearPolitics. COTTonLINE rarely links to explicitly liberal material but often links to scientific or international material with no political tilt whatsoever.

Brooks' conclusion: we are getting more polarized but the Internet is not, as often claimed, at fault. He doesn't answer the next question: what is at fault?