TWO REPLIES NEEDED ASAP

Teresa Ramirez

Sides AUTHOR 1

-Idea 1: “Most peoples “diet” of news isn’t all that skewed by their partisans. There is actually a lot of overlap viewers of various cable news networks. (p. 325)

-Idea 2: “Unsurprisingly, if you isolate people who watch a lot of FOX News or a lot of MSNBC, their viewing habits reflect more skew”. (p.326)

-Idea 3: “We want politics to involve calm, civil, rational, deliberation about the common good” (p. 327)

-Idea 4: “Partisans can be misinformed if they are buying the spin their side selling – spin that, by the way, they can usually hear in neutral news outlets doing “he said, she said” reporting, not simply in partisan news”. (p.327)

Jolly AUTHOR 2

-Idea 1: “Publishers are well aware of this, and have tweaked their infrastructure, accordingly, building algorithms that change the site experience depending on where a reader enters from. (p.327)

-Idea 2: “Algorithms make it much easier not just for you to find the content that you’re interested in, but for the content to find you that the algorithm thinks you’re interested in”. (p.328)

-Idea 3: “Furthermore, the algorithms that social sites use to promote content don’t evaluate the validity of the content, which can and has spread misinformation”. (p. 329)

-Idea 4: “You and I can very likely see different front pages of newspapers online because they are customized for individuals, and that’s pretty dangerous. Because that means I don’t have a baseline to compare what is real and what is not”. (p. 329)

Levendusky AUTHOR 3

-Idea 1: “This choice of explicitly partisan outlets means that individuals can choose to hear messages that reinforce their beliefs, while avoiding those from alternative points of view, which claims leads to polarization” (p.330)

-Idea 2: “Now that they can avoid news altogether, they know less about politics and are less likely to participate” (p. 331)

CONCLUSION

All three authors definitely made some great points and I really had to sit back and let this information marinate before deciding which author I agree with the most. After careful consideration I decided that I agreed more with journalist Jihii Jolly in his idea that we live in a “filter bubble”. I’m sure that moment has happened to everyone when they are talking about something or quickly look something up and all of a sudden, a ton of ads of that specific item has popped up on their newsfeed as they scroll on social media. The algorithms he mentions definitely make is easier for us to see what we want to see and ignore what we don’t. In politics, if we have a particular point of view, articles and ads supporting our point of views are more likely to be more accessible to us. This is also due to our friends, the people we follow and the pages we like. This can be dangerous because we are only getting one side to the story as opposed to the counter argument and the truth. Jolly states ““Algorithms make it much easier not just for you to find the content that you’re interested in, but for the content to find you that the algorithm thinks you’re interested in” (p.328). If we stay in the vicious cycle of the same information, we will never expose ourselves to other points of views.

Jennifer Valdivia-Vega REPLIES

SundayOct 13 at 9:09am

Hi Teresa! First off, great post! I agree with your initial thoughts about how Jolly indicates we live in a "filtered bubble". It' s crazy to think that algorithms exist but the more I think about it, it's really not. That's why when we look at certain items we're thinking about buying and we go to another site like Facebook we see an add pop up of the item we were just looking at. That way we can see the item and end up buying it.

Michelle Dhami - REPLIES

SundayOct 13 at 9:18am

Hi Teresa!

Thank you for the important points you made in your post. Algorithms do make it easier for like content to find you, which would explain why you can sit down intending to look at just one thing for a few moments and find you have read numerous stories and an hour has gone by. This truly is, as you said, a vicious cycle. I found “Prioritization, for example, ranks content to bring attention to one thing at the expense of another (p.328).” to be disturbing, after the fact, I realized than some of the things I have looked up for school have also influenced my feed. The differences between what I have to look up and what I want to look up are responsible for some awkward suggestions! Has your opinion of how you, or if you, seek out political news changed after this assignment and readings? I feel like I will continue to watch televised news while increasing the amount of political news I look up on the internet as we head towards another very important election year.

Teresa Ramirez- REPLIES

TuesdayOct 15 at 1:09pm

Hi Michelle,

Great question regarding whether my opinion has changed while seeking out political news. I must say that I have become more aware of what I look up specifically regarding political news and now I try to find articles from different sources as opposed to just one. I don't watch T.V often so most of my news comes from apps or even social media and I have become more aware of the news shared and I noticed it is filtered. I agree with you that we are headed towards a very important election year and it is important to stay informed.

John Duerk- REPLIES

MondayOct 14 at 10:25am

"Dangerous" is a strong word. How do we reconcile the concern about algorithms with the fact that strong opinions are associated with greater participation in the political system (as Sides tells us)?

Xichun Zhou REPLIES

TuesdayOct 15 at 6:56am

Hello, Teresa

I agree that three authors all give us great analysis. On page 329, Jolly mentioned that the website relies on powerful algorithms and can selectively push information to netizens according to their browsing records and preferences. Personally, I also had such an experience. One day I accidentally browsed an article about Brexit on Google. In the next few days, whenever I opened Google, I would recommend content related to this topic. In addition, when I have some views on a political issue and browse other people's views that are the same as mine, the views I can get on the website on this issue are consistent with mine. I think this is exactly the "obviously partisan" information enhancement mentioned by Levendusky. The website helps us to strengthen the information of our original beliefs while avoiding information from different views. I think this will inevitably lead to polarization and make our political views more extreme and biased.

Teresa Ramirez- REPLIES

TuesdayOct 15 at 1:16pm

Hello Xichun,

You perfectly put my thoughts into words when you said that "The website helps us to strengthen the information of our original beliefs while avoiding information from different views."

By always getting the same information from the same source, we are being deprived of the counterarguments and what can potentially be the truth. I truly believe it is important to get all opinions and facts from both sides and then we can make the decision as to what we want to believe. Like our classmate Michelle said, we are heading towards and important election and it is important to be aware and get news from different sources.

Siona Amrgousian -REPLIES

TuesdayOct 15 at 7:39pm

Hello Teresa,

I can see your points and I can see where you are coming from but I still cannot wrap my head about the idea of a "filter bubble". If you think about it, the idea is a good thing but the way they do it, is terrifying! The thought of someone listening in on my conversation (although they might not be private) makes me uneasy. I do agree with you however when you said that "we will never expose ourselves to other points of views" if we don't want to venture out and seek other points of views. And with this "filter bubble" and all the other algorithms being used, it definitely makes it harder for one to explore different sides of a topic. However, I think this is where political involvement really comes into play; the more an individuals knows about what is happening around the world, the more they keep up with everything, the less chance they have to be exposed to only one side of a story/topic.

Michael Peyser - REPLIES

YesterdayOct 16 at 2:38pm

Hello Teresa,

I absolutely agree that we are living in a filter bubble and I believe that you made your case very well. However, I respectfully disagree that the filter bubble is dangerous. These algorithms are safe for the public as long as the public is made aware of these algorithms. From an economic perspective, an algorithm that displays baseball equipment for people that recently booked e tickets to a baseball game is great for the buyer, the seller, and the advertiser because the buyer receives ads that they are interested based on their activities. The buyer also doesn't waste money on ads that will be ignored by 99% of the people that receive the ad. That aspect is a big part of the modern economy. News platforms kind of work the same way. In John Side's piece, he states that if people have no preferred party, they will most likely not be engaged in politics (p.327). I think his statement is logically true and that the algorithms are appropriate as a means of getting people engaged into politics, but the algorithms must be transparent. At the end of Jolly's piece, a new framework by Diakopoulous is mentioned that attempts to make algorithms more transparent (p.330). Tech giants like Facebook and Google will most likely not be opposed to the implementation of a framework like that. They may be concerned about their proprietary information being exposed in the transparency of the algorithm, but they have enormous platforms with millions of users so I don't think patent infringement is their biggest priority. Especially if they can avoid congressional hearings that adversely affect their companies.