I think this kind of thing may be hard to study, at least for prominent issues, because the effects have been magnified by the creation of media to exploit it. Not only do people reinforce things for each other, but they have authoritative-seeming sources to point to. Those sources are in fact carefully crafted for that purpose, partly for political gain, partly for the sheer commercial power of being perceived as the only acceptable information source.
Once you've bought into the notion that everybody else is lying to you, no amount of getting outside your social circle is going to help. You can simply reject their reality and substitute your own. The cause-and-effect of these superpowered propaganda machines and social networks are hard to untangle; they arose together and influenced each other.
Once you've bought into the notion that everybody else is lying to you, no amount of getting outside your social circle is going to help. You can simply reject their reality and substitute your own. The cause-and-effect of these superpowered propaganda machines and social networks are hard to untangle; they arose together and influenced each other.