Modern news portals increasingly use personalized algorithms to provide users with content that matches their interests and opinions. The goal is to increase relevance and dwell time by suggesting suitable articles, videos, and comments.
At first, this approach seems sensible: users receive content that confirms their viewpoints and makes the flood of information more manageable. But in the long term, a critical problem emerges: the news portal systematically reinforces users' own worldview through the algorithmic selection of thematically similar or confirming contributions. Divergent perspectives and controversial opinions are rarely or never shown. This creates an echo chamber that restricts societal discourse and promotes polarization. Users lose the ability and motivation to reflect on other viewpoints, which can impair democratic opinion formation. Editorial teams, developers, and society face the challenge of understanding the technical and social causes of these effects and assessing the impact on diversity, transparency, and media literacy.
Question:
Which technical and societal factors can lead personalized news portals, despite their potential for better user orientation, to promote echo chambers and polarization, and how do these factors influence the requirements for algorithm design, transparency, diversity assurance, and the promotion of critical media literacy?
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