Beyond the Echo Chamber

Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media
By Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke
New Press, 2010
“Beyond The Echo Chamber tells one of the great untold stories of this decade: the evolution of an entirely new (and newly powerful) progressive media… It’s a must-read for media practitioners, consumers, and progressives of all stripes.”—Christopher Hayes, Host, MSNBC
Buy the book.
Why “Beyond the Echo Chamber”?
When we started our research in 2005, it was all the rage to talk about how progressive media needed “infrastructure”—an echo chamber to mirror and combat the right’s noise machine. Over our subsequent years of research, writing and organizing, we came to believe that progressive media’s impact and sustainability depend on moving “beyond the echo chamber” to a collaborative, networked model of reporting and community building. In this 2010 book, we explored how progressive media makers and outlets could:
- transform themselves to survive and thrive in a participatory media environment,
- work with users to move stories into the national dialogue,
- take advantage of the the four network layers to develop and spread content and engage their communities,
- measure and tell their story of impact.
Since the book’s publication, the political media environment in the U.S. has changed drastically. Participation is now the order of the day, and many of the progressive pioneers we documented are now heading up high-profile media properties that rival those helmed by conservatives. We can’t claim credit, but we have been excited to see many of our nascent theories realized.
PRESS FOR BEYOND THE ECHO CHAMBER:
- Tracy Van Slyke and Jessica Clark lay out the progressive media landscape, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein’s blog, July 28, 2010
- Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke on Media Matters with Bob McChesney, May 9, 2010
- Journalism Innovations, KQED, May 9, 2010
- Beyond the Echo Chamber, Open Left, April 9, 2010
- Show 339: Beyond the Echo Chamber w/Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke, Equal Time for Freethought on WBAI, March 28, 2010
- Dreaming of the Netroots: A Review of Beyond the Echo Chamber, The Indypendent, March 12, 2010
- Rise of Progressive Media w/Tracy Van Slyke, The Young Turks, March 11, 2010
- Rebuilding Media, Campus Progress: Books, March 9, 2010
- Is the Future Bright for Progressive Media?, AlterNet, February 25, 2010
- Beyond the Echo Chamber: Getting Past the Pale, Male and Stale, The Women’s Media Center, February 24, 2010
- Beyond Pale, Male and Stale, In These Times, February 17, 2010
- Beyond ‘pale, stale and male’, UNFree Media, February 15, 2010
- Beyond the Echo Chamber Writes New News History as it Happens, Nonprofit Communicator Blog, February 15, 2010
- Reality Cast, RH Reality Check, February 14, 2010
- Where Will We Get the Next Rachel Maddow?, The American Prospect, February 9, 2010
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke, Beyond the Echo Chamber, Firedoglake, February 7, 2010
- Whose News is it Anyway?, GRITtv, February 4, 2010
- Beyond the Echo Chamber, Sharable.net, February 2, 2009
- What’s the Future of Journalism? Tracy Van Slyke Knows, Global Comment, February 1, 2010
- Media Minutes, Free Press, December 25, 2009
- 2009’s Most Influential Media About Media, December 24, 2009
- Getting Out of the Echo Chamber, December 21, 2009
- Beyond the Echo at Muhlenberg College, November 19, 2009