The common thread I noticed in this week's readings: we're getting our news from nontraditional (but new normal) sources, and it's polarizing us. It's a sad fact about the state of our world, but if this is where "news" is destined to end up, well...let's be more responsible about who's putting it on places like Facebook and Twitter (and whatever comes next).
The Pew Research report, "The Evolving Role of News on Twitter and Facebook," at first left me scratching my head. Really, I thought, it's this high of a percentage of the population who get their news from Twitter and Facebook?
Who am I kidding though? It makes sense, especially with regard to Twitter. I think of Twitter as a faster moving, more agile outlet anyway. Twitter is the unstable, embarrassing, opinionated uncle we all know and love: quick to speak out, controversial, not always right, and never one to admit he's wrong. But Twitter is also likely to be first on the scene and provide perspectives we may not have been thinking about. So I can't find it all wrong. And if Twitter is your outspoken uncle, Facebook is your grandpa--even more opinionated and more often than not, way too politically incorrect.
In "The Science of Protecting People's Feelings: Why We Pretend All Opinions Are Equal," Mooney explores ways in which we try and make each other feel better--and worse--about what we know--or don't. As I was reading, I was mentally comparing this to the "everybody-gets-a-trophy-for-participating" phenomenon I'm currently living via my kids. We live in a world where no one knows how to lose and we're all too worried about our own ego to be wrong. It's frustrating, and all I could think while reading was: UGH.
The other Pew Research story in our readings, "Political Polarization in the American Public" is incredibly interesting--and simultaneously exhausting. I could read and try to puzzle out the statistics sited inside this article all. day. long., but all I kept thinking was...WHY? What happened over the last 20 years that we've moved so far away from the center and have become so extreme on either side of the conservative/liberal divide? And can it actually be attributed to the HOW...the way in which we're gathering information (i.e. the rise of social networking)? Is it easier to hate the people we observe being outspoken because we do see them much more easily and regularly than we ever have before? We dislike each other more passionately on either side, and fewer of us <can stand to> have "mixed" feelings in the middle. It worries me, a lot.
The final article I'll mention, "If You Use Facebook to Get Your News, Please--For the Love of Democracy-- Read This First," had interesting views--from a year ago--about how Facebook "news" could affect elections, and what do you know: it has! To be honest, the information here didn't tell me much I wasn't already aware of. As has been the case with many of the things I've read for this class, what's more informative to me is to realize how many people aren't aware of the ways in which outlets like Facebook are driving what shows up in their news feeds via algorithms, etc. Simply put, humanity: we have GOT to start thinking more for ourselves, and stop believing what's immediately in front of us, or we're in big trouble. Ask questions! Think freely! DISCUSS!
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