Getting information from social media
Many people get their news and information from social media. Whether it is from an article a friend has shared or the trending news sidebar on Facebook, more and more people use social media as a source of information. However, with an increasing amount of unbiased news sources, this can be dangerous. Some of the articles, especially with politics, frame events with a narrative that the reader probably already agrees with. It is limiting for a person that has liberal beliefs to solely read articles published by the liberaldaily.com for example. This is the issue with social media today. Many people have like minded friends that have posts that are similar to the user’s beliefs. This creates an echo chamber that limits the user from hearing about beliefs and ideas that are different from theirs.
A big instance of this was the result of the presidential election. Many liberal users’ news feeds were filled with pro Hillary posts, and very few posts from people that supported Trump. This led to a blindside for many people who did not realize the number of Trump supporters there are in the world because most of their interactions were with like minded people. The way to combat this is to read both sides of any issue before making a stand. Another way to get information is to seek out unbiased news sources such as the Associated Press. This way, a user will be able to diversify the information they read and be able to hear new view points.