Media scholar Henry Jenkins research on Participatory Culture states people take control of the media in which they consume. This week in CEP 812, I was asked to analyze my own Participatory Culture. Specifically, I am looking at my own information diet to add new information to diversify its contents. An information diet is the amount and type of information you consume digitally and otherwise. This assignments goal was to create a metacognitive view of how biases and technology can stagnate the growth of diverse thinking.
According to James Paul Gee, an affinity space is virtual or physical location in which people are drawn together because of shared and strong interests or engagement in a common activity (Gee, Hayes 2009). James Paul Gee warns us of the dangers of affinity spaces. Gee states, “In a healthy society, diversity is honored because diverse people and viewpoints serve the same purpose as variation does in evolution. Such diversity expands the possibilities for new discoveries and survival in the face of change. A closed society, like a species with little genetic variation and too much inbreeding, is doomed (Gee 2013).” People who only populate their information diet with others who are like minded will not better themselves or society. New solutions to problems are created because people empathize with many different views and understand many different problems. They look at those views to find the missing pieces in their problems.
Not only do people’s biases affect the information we gain, technology can also filter it. Eli Praiser founder of the website, Upworthy, argues against technology that creates filter bubbles. Filter bubbles can be defined as software from different websites filtering the information based on your key searches or clicks. For example, friends on Facebook that are more viewed pop up in the news feeds much more often than friends that are not viewed. Google searches can also filter out information based on past searches. This system allows for what Gee calls “doomed inbreeding”.
Experts Gee and Praiser have pushed me to search for information beyond my affinity space and beyond the effects of the filter bubble. The limitations of my information diet are now clear. To explain, if I do not like what a person(non-friend) or group says, I unfollow or unfriend them. I am also more liberal in my thinking, so that affects my filter bubble and affinity space. To explain, I have very little to no conservative posts from my social media accounts to Google searches. In addition to the lack of right-wing posts, I also follow and like many posts related to mindless popular culture. My information diet is in need of “healthier” options.
The start to diversifying my information diet was not great. I found a decent amount of resources about complex and critical thinking, but I failed to find many education sites that were conservative in nature. Fortunately for me I was able to find a few Common Core organizations that were both for and against it. Both types of accounts had posts from users of varying mindsets. It was discouraging to read about a lot of conservative post claiming the Common Core to be a communist, socialist, or unhelpful practice. Most post were posted without reason or evidence. My new information suffers from many claims without a substantial amount of credibility.
“Heathier” resources were the resources related to my groups wicked problem of teaching complex thinking and educational technology. These accounts gave a lot of practice based advice. To explain, I received previews of professional development, lesson plans, theories, and lots of multimedia. Videos and pictures drew me in as I looked for potential resources to help solve my groups wicked problem. Adding these sources helps to balance the mindless consumption of information I took in.
Some selected posts from my information diet:
References
Gee, J.P. (2013). The anti-education era: Creating smarter students through digital learning. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E. (2011) Nurturing Affinity Spaces and Game-Based Learning. Cadernos de Letras.Web. http://www.letras.ufrj.br/anglo_germanicas/cadernos/numeros/072011/textos/cl2831072011gee.pdf
Pariser, E. (Presenter). (2011, February). Beware online “filter bubbles.” Speech presented at Ted Talks, Long Beach, CA.
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I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week. I think you do a great job clearly explaining Gee’s theories around affinity spaces and Parisers ideas about the “filter bubble”.I am curious, after reading your post, which affinity spaces you follow specifically? What information do you typically search? I also enjoyed reading about your findings and the various tweets you included in your storify feed. I am especially interested in the @designEdGroup twitter feed which considers how design thinking can be used to foster students’ learning and understanding in various aspects of the classroom. They had one post on integrating the iPads with design thinking in the classroom – Very interesting for me as a technology integrator. There were some great ideas on there site. I will follow this one for sure now 🙂 Overall, good job and very interesting post!
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