The Sadness Continues

 Evolving Role of News Response

This story raised a few questions for me. One question was based on the statistic that on Facebook, younger users are more likely to see news than older users. Could this be because older uses had other news sources that they actively sought out – probably  traditional news sources that are in the habit of consuming – and younger ones saw news only through Facebook?

I was hoping for a larger subject size, particularly of Twitter users. I also wonder if the time the study was taken could influence results. The survey was done in times that are traditionally spring break for a lot of college-aged adults, and even older adult with children who take off work to match their children’s schedule. Are people responding based on their overall use or their most recent interactions? Patterns of use might change based on vacation or traditional work week schedules. I wonder if the results would be different for a study that was not self-reported, but that actually analyzed data based on what people clicked on or spent the most time looking at.

Political Polarization Response

The Pew Research Center article states that “with Barack Obama in the White House, partisan antipathy is more pronounced among Republicans, especially consistently conservative Republicans.” The article doesn’t necessary go into why, but I do wonder if race is a factor in the more pronounced partisan antipathy. Polls show that conservative Republicans typically do not do well gaining the votes of black and Hispanic people. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that hate crimes have gone up since Obama has been in office, and coverage of that report on an ABC News blog suggests the rise is fueled by the immigration debate. It is interesting to see how this polarization affects politics, compromise and everyday life; maybe the next step is to see why this polarization occurs to see if trend has to continue to increase.

Protecting People’s Feelings and Political Polarization Connection

Reading these stories made me wonder if the “equality bias” finding of Cornell researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger only applies to individuals, not groups, since the Pew Research Center article finds that political polarization is increasing instead of seeking to find middle ground on viewpoints as the Cornell research would suggest.

Social-Network Illusion Response

That MIT Technology Review included the word “influencerati” in the report is a distraction.

Facebook News – For the Love of Democracy Connection to Outside Material

One key difference between news consumed on Facebook and Twitter has been that Twitter seems to be preferred for breaking news events because Facebook’s algorithm selects what to show you, not necessarily based on real time. Caitlin Dewey in this Washington Post article states that, “as much as 72 percent of the new material your friends and subscribed pages post never actually shows up in your News Feed.” I wonder how that is going to change considering the news that Twitter is going to release an algorithmic timeline, just as Facebook does.

Facebook Use Polarizing Response and Connection to Pew Political Polarization Report

The report is scary and suspect. The scary part: the report states that Facebook is the world’s most widely read daily newspaper. Facebook is a not a newspaper! And while for some it functions that way, this is scary to me. I personally don’t go onto Facebook to get news, I go on Facebook to get away from hardcore news, escape the day and keep up with specific people. A different report found that people in a poor country thought that Facebook was the Internet. Facebook is gaining too much unearned power and influence, in my opinion.

The suspect part: that the study was done by people who work for Facebook; they can design a study to find what they want to find. It would be more transparent and less suspect if Facebook gave outside researchers access to the information, which I realize is unrealistic.

This report found that liberal users are connected to fewer friends who share views from the other side; this contradicts the Pew Research Center report on polarization, which found that, “people with down-the-line ideological positions – especially conservatives – are more likely than others to say that most of their close friends share their political views.” Hmmm...based only the information source, I’d side with Pew.