A WORLD MADE JUST FOR YOU

Andrea Trejo Hernandez

Rhetoric and Media Communication

Jonathan S Carter

April 3rd, 2017

Andrea Trejo Hernandez

Rhetoric and Media Communication

Jonathan S Carter

April 3rd, 2017

Andrea Trejo Hernandez

Rhetoric and Media Communication

Jonathan S Carter

April 3rd, 2017

Andrea Trejo Hernandez

Rhetoric and Media Communication

Jonathan S Carter

April 3rd, 2017

"A World Made Just For You”

Imagine there was a world where everyone agreed with your opinions and ideals and any ideas that might come to question your opinions were rejected and set aside. You must be thinking that this sounds completely illogical and that every head is a world, therefore there will never exist a world where everyone shares the same ideas. Well, you are partly right. There is a world where most of the information around you is based on your opinions. We call it the “filter bubble.” The term “filter bubble” is used to describe a form of communication in which all the information you receive is based on you and your ideals, and you rarely allow ideas that are opposed to yours.

Lately, the media has been a big factor in promoting the “filter bubble” by providing you with information that is personalized using algorithms. They use your personal information on the things that you read, watching this to decide what information you will receive. This graph describes the “filter bubble.” You are in the middle, and the media that surrounds you determines what goes inside your bubble. Eli Pariser describes this process as follows: “Our media is a perfect reflection of our interests and 12 desires. By definition, it’s an appealing prospect—a return to a Ptolemaic universe in which the sun and everything else revolves around us.” In the middle of this image you can also find a message that says you are responsible for getting out of your filter bubble since it can cause personal and social problems due to the fact that we are not allowing ourselves to view both sides of the story or maybe even the real story, we are only listening to the information we feel comfortable affecting our “Dissoi Logoi.”

I declare myself guilty of having my own “filter bubble.” Most of the time I try to surround myself with people who have similar opinions to mine and reject those who don’t. Considering most of my friends on Facebook are minorities and liberals, all the news I get is biased towards liberals. Also, I only watch the news in Spanish, mainly “Noticiero Univision,” which has an inclination towards the liberals as well. I used to try to read things that had opinions that opposed mine, but lately, I have been avoiding them.

These are some examples of news and information that I found on my Facebook account as part of my “filter bubble.”