Everything’s an ‘echo-chamber’ these days.
It’s a phrase that has been co-opted from the language of cultural criticism and buzzword-ified. It’s original meaning is quite cool, however: a hollow enclosure used by a sound engineer to give the impression that a conversation is happening in a bigger space than it actually is. That description perfectly fits some of the social media exchanges over Clearing 2018, (most notably the Essex/Leeds Beckett ‘leaky bucket’ debacle). #Leakybucketgate perplexed some, and elicited significant outpourings of outrage in others, but none of the responses quite got the heart of the issue. Yes, the tweets undermined sector solidarity but, more than that, they confused the microcosm of GIF-led sabre-rattling with the focus of results day and clearing as a whole: young people. A true echo-chamber.
