The Mere Exposure Effect and Media

The mere-exposure effect is a psychologicalphenomenon by which people tend to develop a liking or disliking for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. The effect has been demonstrated with many kinds of things, including words, Chinese characters, paintings, pictures of faces, geometric figures, and sounds.^[1] In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often people see a person, the more pleasing and likeable they find that person.

One core question to digital media: are you reading from the algorithm or is the algorithm writing you?

Just how there might not be “democrats” and “republicans” but instead “cnn viewers / NYT elites” and “Fox News viewers” there might actually be splits in belief based on if you’re a “instagram user” or “TikTok user”

Good food for thought :) .