In his book The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser argued, “Our individual filter bubbles contribute to the polarization and divisiveness in society by reinforcing our biases and ignoring alternative viewpoints” (Pariser). This paper will observe the relationship between “bubbles” in the acquisition of knowledge and the reinforcing of bias/blocking of viewpoints, both limiting the knowledge available to any acquisition. To explore the selected inquiry above, it must first be interpreted to gain a comprehensive understanding of precisely what this investigation is answering. The inquiry refers to “bubbles” in an acquisition of knowledge, where some information and voices are excluded. For this paper, the “bubbles” will be interpreted as any means that …show more content…
History textbook, which “ includes a map that refers to forcibly imported Africans in 1775 as ‘immigrants’” (“Bias in History Textbooks | American University”). Or progressively blatant about the bias, a Texas school assigned Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States in 2018, which argues “that “many [slaves] may not have even been terribly unhappy with their lot, for they knew no other””(Bias in History Textbooks | American University). The bias written into textbooks, a literary tool with the responsibility of being strictly factual, creates “bubbles” of information that withhold perspectives, and therefore creates a lack of understanding and knowledge in students relying on the textbooks as educational tools. The relationship between the acquisition of knowledge and the “bubbles” created within it is observed within the area of literature; however, the relationship is not as clearly displayed within the area of human sciences. That is, it is less easily quantifiable. One example of “bubbles” within the acquisition of knowledge in the area of human sciences is the use of …show more content…
They can lead to people becoming more fixed in their opinions, and creating a self-reinforcing cycle of information consumption. This has led many to believe it is the cause of increasing political polarization within the United States. In a 2023 Harvard study, scientists analyzed 2020 data for all adult Americans with active Facebook accounts, finding that the majority of the content that people see on the platform comes from ‘like-minded sources’” (“Facebook and the echo chamber: scientists examine how social media affects political views”). That is, people mainly see sources that share their political leanings, which then limits their exposure to diverse perspectives. By favoring narratives and ideologies that align with a person’s own opinions, echo chambers create exclusionary bubbles on social media and therefore limit any possible acquisition of knowledge. By limiting our acquisition of knowledge to “bubbles” where voices or information are excluded, we limit the amount of knowledge available to us, as shown in the areas of human sciences and
“High school students hate history.”(pg.12) Even though in the end, that is the class they have the easiest time passing. Studies have showed that the more history classes that students take the less that they learn. They become “more stupid” about history.(pg.12) “African American, Native American, and Latino stu...
The education of an author on their topic is the biggest contributor to their reliability; having enough prior knowledge and background information on a subject is crucial when providing a historical analysis. An author’s personal background is of great importance as well, because their personal heritage and beliefs may lead to bias and misrepresentation of information, which removes all credibility of them and/or their work as source. Partiality, favoritism, and/or prejudice towards a specific demographic can create a blurred line between what is fact and what is opinion, which in turn can allow for personal assessments to be presented as arguments and facts even though they have been influenced to a great extent by prior thoughts and opinions.
Sean Blanda’s, “The Other Side Is Not Dumb”, uses cultural examples concerning the younger American generation involving, the medias influence and peer pressure vs the actual facts and proof, involved while forming a personal opinion. The author emphasizes how the effects of pressure from our surroundings, such as: friends, media, and more, adjust our view of political and social subjects. He includes multiple cases of where your own ignorance can hinder your learning and interaction with others. If you continue to have a negative outlook on people who disagree with you, you’ll never be able to consider yourself a curious person and participate in social media. “We cannot consider ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those that don’t agree with us.”- Mr. Blanda
Many websites are known for being radically one-sided in their news coverage. In “The Things People Say” Kolbert says that left-leaning readers know, for example, that if they go to the Huffington Post or to AlterNet they will find stories that support their view of the world. Right-leaning readers know to go to the Drudge Report or to Newsmax to find stories that fit their preconceptions. This issue is all throughout social media as well. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. you will find this biased information. A lot of times, we click and read things that gravitate towards our thinking and shun the rest of the information that does not. In this sense we become secular to opinions that strengthen our own and disregard all
In Nicholas Carr’s article “How Social Media Is Ruining Politics”, Carr writes about the effects that social media has on politics. In his article, Carr focuses more on the negative effect that social media has when it comes to politics. Some points that he makes about social media include specific examples like the recent presidential campaigns, how other technological advances over the years have effected politics, and the effectiveness that social media has on politics
Cass R. Sunstein talks about this in her article “How Facebook Makes Us Dumber.” She states that social media “intentionally spreads false information” (Sunstein). In her article she explains how Americans look for answers they want to hear even if the information is incorrect and how there is a rapid increase in not supporting true information, and this does not only happen on social media but in the real world too. Pariser talks in his article about how “it will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them” (Pariser). He talks in his speech about the filter bubbles social media put on for people. Sunstein also shows that people have a specific place in putting this false information and one is “within homogenous clusters”
James Loewen’s, Lies My Teacher Told Me, criticizes the shortcomings of American education that is associated with inaccurate histories in textbooks. First, the fact that students do not have high regards when it comes to American history textbooks, proves how unreliable the education system is. In addition, textbooks are often to blame, because they are too dull, and are rather—boring (Loewen 384), which is why it has become a requirement for students to read books, because no one wants to read those uninteresting books. Even history textbooks, they cover redundant materials which make the subject more and more uninteresting to the students. It makes the students less motivated to learn. Moreover, he also argues that the problematic issues lie within the bureaucracy. They make the decisions on what the students will learn or which textbooks they will be reading. So far, they have not done a good job. At times, history textbooks were often censored and handpicked. It may even be completely different from the rest of the [history] textbooks. These censored textbooks, often keep the students in the dark when the controversial issues are removed (Loewen 389). It really undermines the freedom of speech and emphasizes that, often, key pieces are left out that is critical to the historical event, such as exemplifying that many of his college students have never even
The Echo Chamber Effect is helped by the social media algorithm that will show you posts that agree with your beliefs so you will spend more times on their site. For example, “On Twitter, for instance, people who tweet about politics tend to tweet primarily at and with people who belong to the same party, creating what one team of researchers called “pockets of political polarization.”” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/16/you-might-think-trump-is-bad-but-unfriending-his-supporters-on-facebook-is-worse/?utm_term=.f03a3a7df113) This polarization is prevalent in the people that during the election unfriended Trump supporters. You are creating a digital wall to protect yourself from Trump just like how Trump wants to build a wall to protect the United States from
As the mind matures and grows, new opinions are formed with the help of the revolutionizing consciousness of humanity. The human conscious allows humanity to develop individually and gain unique cognitive patterns and thinking processes. However, these opinions can be manipulated by environmental sources, like the media. The media’s puppet strings can be used to influence the minds of the masses and control their overall thinking process. It takes away an individual’s freedom to think for themselves and form their own opinions. Manipulation is a key ingredient in attaining support for a side of an argument. News networks have this ability to twist the minds of their listeners and unconsciously force them to believe in their words. Two of the
In source C, William Blanche explains how people are being too dependent on others words instead of finding out themselves. He states “Critical thinking has become a lost art form filled with media’s attempt to persuade us to sidetrack our ability to come to a conclusion, based on the facts”. What Blanche is trying to explain is that people are looking for media to give them answers and explain news and situations instead of trying to find out themselves. Having help from media isn’t a bad thing, but completely depending on media is a bad thing. Using your brain to decipher information has become quite rare in this day and age and this can be related back to students in the classroom. Instead of trying to learn and go out and struggling to find information, students easily search on Google and click on the first link. They inhale all that information without thinking for a second if they should find out more information. Why? Because it is easy for them. By doing this, a student isn’t learning, but rather, they are simply regurgitating ...
According to James Madison, “nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power and to withhold from them information, without which power is abused,” suggesting that the people have the right to learn popular information and learn both sides of an issue (Paul and Elder 2). However, in modern society, the media often do not present both sides of an issue and are inclined to often mask information for their personal benefits. Therefore, the people often learn and understand only one aspect of an issue and inevitably lean towards the bias present in that news account. Indubitably, the coverage in the mainstream news media influences the majority through its bias and propaganda, especially its partisan audience, which only appreciates one side of the news story. Thus, even though news networks may claim that their news programs and publications are completely factual and credible, their coverage of news events is politically, commercially, and racially biased.
In Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, the author, James W. Loewen attempts to acknowledge and correct or offer various possibilities of historically significant events to American history. Loewen also offers reasons why minorities typically perform the lowest in history, more so than any other school subjects. In doing so, he exposes all of the lies highlighting white protestant innovations that history textbooks use to teach American students that position minorities below whites Protestants.
Personally I think it’s crippling to the future of the country as it leads to a less and less informed public population. Bi-partisanship has rapidly disappeared over the past fifteen or so years, and I think the advent of social media and a personal tailoring of information is directly correlated. I feel like I owe it to myself to follow prominent figures and outlets from every corner of the opinion universe, because I’d be a social media hypocrite if I created my own
Facebook is slowly replacing the industry leading news stations like CNN, NBC and Fox News or in other words "the middleman" by directly connecting the public with the writer without the editor and publisher. Although that may have downsides most people seem to prefer it simply because it is not filtered on what a particular company wants to produce and gives less power to the major media companies that tend to sway people in a particular direction. To come up with a solution to the downside of Facebook comes many great ideas like creating an algorithm to spot unreliable news articles, or create a community that identifies misinformation for the benefit of everyone else, or creating a human team of journalist and policymakers that judges whether an article is factual. Although these theories have potential to be successful it is ultimately up to the viewer of the article to determine whether or not they want to research and confirm the information on the topic presented to them. Social media platforms have changed the way modern America perceives news forever with preferences to each profile and the ability to explore other types of information by entering a few keywords in a search bar is a method only a couple decades old and we should try to prevent from limiting this type of
The purpose of this essay is to develop a further understanding of the impacts of social media in regards to the political debate. By looking at the topic of social media and the use rhetoric in response to politics in the 21st century, a deeper understanding of the issue can be established. Social media has become a primary source for the discussion of politics by the average citizen; whether through the sharing of articles, “memes”, advertisements or personal expository statements. As a result, large sums of information and ideas are spread rapidly to a wide variety of subjects. However, much of this information may not be accurate and could be misinterpreted. Consequently potentially misinformed citizens may not be able to make a properly