Hello readers! This will be the last blog post from us running
our #burstyourbubble campaign. We hope that this experience has been as eye
opening for you as it has been for us! At the bottom of this post, we will compile
a list of some of the links we have shared throughout the campaign, as a
resource for anyone who wants easy access to them.
To conclude our campaign, here is an executive summary of
what we have covered, week by week.
In the first week of #burstyourbubble, we gave an
introduction of the topic, defining terms such as filter bubbles themselves, ideological
polarization, affective polarization, as well as discussed the ways that people
consume news through social media.
For our second week we focused on facts and figures and posted
eye opening statistics and points of reference. We discussed the discrepancies
in news consumption based on factors such as class, race, income, education and
gender. Some highlights include that only 22% of internet users in the United
Kingdom are engaging in a wide variety of sources of news, online and offline.
It is estimated that 2% of internet users, around 1.35 million people, are in a
left leaning filter bubble, whereas 3.4 million, 5% are in a right leaning
filter bubble.
Next, we had debate week, we where showed a range of
perspectives on filter bubbles and online polarization. We discussed Barnridge’s
concept of ‘The Inadvertency Hypothesis’ which disputes the threat of filter
bubbles, by arguing that the affordances of social media cause people to
encounter a wider range of political opinions than they would in offline life.
We also looked at the article ‘The Echo Chamber is overstated: the Moderating
Effect of Political Interest and Diverse Media’ by Blank and Dubois, who state
that people who get stuck in filter bubbles are those with little interest in
politics, combined with a confined range of media. For people outside of that
group, the article found that filter bubbles are not a major threat.
For our last week of the campaign, we shared advice on how
to combat filter bubbles, as well as highlighted what individual social media
platforms are doing to counter filter bubbles and polarization online. We
discussed Twitter’s political ad ban – introduced in 2019, which banned all political
paid advertisements. However, issue-based adverts by non-profit organizations
were not affected. On the other hand, after reports in reports in 2017 and 2018
proved that Facebook’s algorithms were dividing people rather than connecting them,
Facebook took no action.
We hope you have enjoyed the content we have provided in the
past couple weeks and are optimistic that you learned something new about
filter bubbles and echo chambers online. Hopefully the resources and
information we have provided helps you to form your own opinion on these issues.
Thank you for following us on this journey, and we sincerely hope you are now
ready to #burstyourbubble!!
Here is the promised list of links to relevant information:
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