Great post, interesting analysis of segregation, tribal behavior, leaders and followers. I particularly like the notion of disdain for the mainstream. This plays out every day as people on Twitter turn their noses up at the wildly more successful (and IT-reliable) Facebook and MySpace.

You say "And that is where the problem lies for me, a serious lacking in critical skills within social media, a fundamental flaw in the system, cult-like blind faith is fucking dangerous, and there will be ferocious venomous spitting when opposing extremes come together.

Look at any war, it is no different... treat your tribe with caution, tread carefully before you preach for you may be amplifying an ideology which is in fact marginalising and segregating."

I'm not at all sure what you mean by this. I agree that the internet has made tribe mentality more profound than ever, that's the bottom line of Clay Shirky's book.

I'd agree there may be a slight lack of critical skills but my fear is that it's over compensated for by everyone trying to justify what they do by "bigging it up" with a lot of 3rd year University language and stuff about polarisation, amplification & terms like "info-obesity" & the like. We're in danger of choking on our own dog food.

What works more for me is hugely simple examples of how things have actually worked, got people talking and led to eyeballs & sales as at the end of the day that's what all marketers are interested in.

We can ideologise (made up word I'm sure) and navel gaze until the cows come home, but if it's stops us from doing things, what's the point?

I agree - the operative is tribes - more and more people are joining the conversation all the time and there is no more unifying single focus as there was in the beginning. the noise of real conversation is covering the repetition of the evangelists and i find conversations are less about social media and media and more about what people are interested in, what they are doing, what they are thinking about and life in general. This is good. We don't drink water because we are fascinated by wells.

I would like to appreciate your efforts you have made in writing this post. We all hope the same work from you in the future as well.
May God bless you and your family

Very interesting post Chris thanks. Personally, this quote

Ideological Amplification is when a belief within a tribe (niche) becomes the "norm" or "accepted" and often "expected" and is then exponentially amplified among its members.

is what struck me the most. Im far from a Social Media professional or marketing bod, but i have an interest in it, growing in the last 6 months, as a user, journalist and someone who creates content online and offline. Thing is that quote of yours resonated with me in my experiences of music communities online and offline. What you said applies to a tee to how niche genres of music are incubated and then become popular with a certain 'norm' laid down as the golden rule by which the genre should be created, listened to and/or appreciated. It's uncanny, I've known it for ages but to see it worded like that it's clicked in a little further.
as for social media, I'm with the previous poster, what i find most interesting, and always have since I started hanging around on forums years ago, is the noise and how now in a sense it can be a lot more 'focused'. evangelism is all good, but the everyday life things is where I often learn the most.
anyways im tired and not even sure i make any sense. thanks though, gave me some inspiration and food for thought!

Yeah totally get the PR angle, i guess its not too dissimilar to what certain producers/labels/journalists want when amplifying a unified message about norms within a music genre.
Your definition got me thinking though. If there is Ideological Amplification and that leads to a certain amount of normalization within a niche/tribe, how do you break/stop it? How do you stop something becoming homogenized I guess to an extent?
Going back to the music examples, I can see clearly that there are certain labels, producers and even journalists (all of which are getting fairly rare year on year due to how the internet is helping to spread the Ideological Amplification among music fans in niche genres, but also in more popular genres) which you could argue act as a virus against the Ideological Amplification - they break away from the accepted norm, willingly or not, and in the process they either create new niches/tribes or, hopefully, stimulate interest, debate and diversity in the original tribe/niche.
Thing is then, I was trying to think back to Ideological Amplification within social media and what could constitute a virus in that case? Still not sure if im honest...

The concepts of ideological amplification really resonated with me. When I moved from Texas to Illinois I noticed very different information coming in to me during internet searches. I always find it intriguing and a little concerning that my web history is maintained and says so much about me. I teach a class which is augmented by a standard course support system. In response to your question about how I go about diversifying the thinking in work, I have the benefit of seeing students in the classroom once a week. Therefore, I can make some judgments about the personalities and thoughts to mix it up a little. I suppose I good do a little more background analysis to learn this kind of information even in a completely virtual environment. In the face-to-face environment I am very concerned about amplification of my own ideas into students’ heads. I don’t try to inculcate or replicate little versions of me. With well and engaged virtual communities, I suppose the engagement would ward off the amplification and dampening you reference. Of course if all else fails, I set up virtual debates online asking students to select a point of view they are not familiar with. With this year being an election year this was really easy…students who told me they knew a lot about the Democratic platform were challenged to argue Republican stances.

Three phenomena derive from those two traits to make dissent less likely and, therefore, even more valuable to society. First, those needs for a heuristic and good will can lead to conformity even when conformity may be opposed to society's interests. A second phenomenon is termed a social cascade. These can occur as people follow the lead of opinion-setters and then others follow the followers. Think of how a clothing line becomes what every teenager must wear or how a restaurant can become the hot place to be seen. Those following the leaders can fail to disclose relevant private information about the clothing line or the restaurant that would make either less appealing for society. The third phenomenon is group polarization that occurs as the members come under the joint influence of their common group membership and beliefs. Collective decisions made under those influences can become more extreme than the position of any individual member of the group.

Ideological Amplification When a belief within a tribe (or niche) becomes the “norm” or “accepted” and often “expected” and is then exponentially amplified among its members. - chris hambly good examples: any religion, football fan, free masons, social media evangelists (yep)..
Cool Bananas for Marketing Marketers want small niche tribes “it’s not how many, it’s who” The “power” is in the tribal belief to the product Can be considered “viral” I prefer “pathological” ;) Not cool when the amplified ideology is negative in intent. – which is often unknown at inception. A company needs a great product or BALLS, both is better!