Blog #7: EOTO Reaction 2

 The second Each One Teach One presentations captured my interest, as they were all about theories. I am someone who enjoys studying behavior and trends among populations, especially as it relates to media, so I researched further some of the theories that I heard about from my classmates. Since the theory that I studied was all about how people interpret and change their acceptance on laws, it was interesting to see some of my classmates cover various ideas like technology, cybersecurity, and communication.

The first presentation that caught my attention was about the Five Eyes (see Wikipedia page). This is an intelligence sharing alliance that dates its creation back to World War II. This includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US that shared information about different safety intelligence. Upon googling this theory, there is a copious amount of current news that is covering the five eyes. For example, this article includes a podcast style interview from The Atlantic that overviews how the current administration poses a possible threat to the unification of the Five Eyes. The article appears to be criticizing Trump for extending Russian talking points, claiming that the remarks posed as a threat to the alliances that the US made after World War II, including this one. I found this interesting because this alliance seems to secure a lot of information about safety, and exchanges resources. Many Americans may look at situations such as the one mentioned in the article as dangerous and a threat to the safety of the US.

 

Another presentation that interested me was about echo chambers (see Wikipedia page). This theory stuck with me because it seems as though it is becoming more and more relevant as technology and social media evolve to allow everyone to have access to information all of the time. After further research, I found an article on GCF Global that describes echo chambers as "fueled in part by confirmation bias". I think this is extremely relevant and important because as social media algorithms are getting very complex at showing users the type of content that they are used to, it becomes very easy for users to fall into these echo chambers. When looking at current news involving this theory, I found an article from Forbes that points to peoples tendencies to only look at one side of political news, and how that has led to an extremely polarized society. The article distinctly points out the use of feedback loops within social media platforms which is why these users are seeing content and creators that align with their opinions. With the amount of fake news being posted, it is easy for someone to pigeonhole themselves into only seeing one side of media, especially as most people do not look at a variety of sources for their news. 

Overall, I learned a lot from the Each One Teach One second projects, and upon further research I have realized that a lot of these theories and organizations are being heavily impacted today. Whether it is through social media, rising technology, politics, or overall access, people and their opinions are constantly changing and it is important to always be aware of the things that affect us negatively, especially in media.