In my Fundamentals of Journalism of class, my professor asked us all, “How did the media coverage of Donald Trump help contribute to his election?”
Think back to the election season last year. If you were like me, you would constantly be seeing political opinions from your friends and family on Facebook, or whatever social media platform you used. Of course you would see the occasional opinion you disagree with, but more likely than not, you would see your friends supporting the opinion you agreed with. That was the only political opinion you would see, so clearly you started to conclude, that had to be the logical, popular opinion in the United States.
You, like me, were in an echo chamber. You were only seeing media that aligned with your view and bias, and just that media. You weren’t seeing, nor were you considering, that there might be another side. You didn’t think that who you wanted to win might lose, because you refused to see the evidence. As a result, you and I, we didn’t act, we thought we were safe, and some of us didn’t protest or vote.
We were all, frankly, arrogant and trapped in our echo chambers.
We as a nation became polarized, and polarization is, as we have seen, extremely dangerous. If we’re not educated about both sides of an argument or political event, we risk making uninformed decisions. We risk not acting. We have to be educated not only about the topics and sides we want information on, but the other, opposing information that exists around the same facet. If we only have one half of the information about an event or person or political occasion, we cannot fully interact with politics.
Now that Donald Trump is our president, when decisions and actions start to be announced and acted upon, we cannot be stuck in an echo chamber. We have to not only listen to our friends with the same opinion, but to the other side.
I know, you might not want to, but you have to. Education is a tool, a power that you can wield to communicate with others, and make a change in our world. We all have to steal ourselves over the next four years, why not equip ourselves with the best tool we have? Learn, avoid echo chambers, and stay informed. We make educated choices, we just all might make it through this presidency.
If you really don’t want to hear the other side, just remember what happened the last time we all stayed in our echo chambers: we garnered the 45th president of the United States.
