The first session on this first full day at ECREA 2018 is on polarisation, and starts with Melanie Magin. She begins by highlighting the potential deleterious effects of polarisation on society: societies need a common meeting ground, and this has traditionally been provided by the news media and their agenda-setting function. But the diversification of information sources and channels may contribute to fragmenting this, and the algorithmic selection of content in these channels could aid this fragmentation – yet there is very little empirical evidence for the existence of the echo chambers or filter bubbles this is said to cause …