Understanding argumentation is likely very important to wading through political news in a productive way. Argumentation involves taking positions and refuting opposing positions based on the careful identification of reasons and the evidence behind those reasons. It is a way to get beyond the noise and the emotion when decisions must be made in contentious situations. Argumentation is a productive process that requires careful attention to the positions we already hold (are there actually reasons and is there actually evidence) and attention to the efforts of those with a different perspective to support their position. The externalization of positions is a way to learn. (Yes, I have been reading about the educational potential of argumentation and I see the educational applications as based on similar principles as my description of authoring/teaching to learn). Educators might want to consider developing argumentation skills as relevant to the educational emphasis on the development of 21st-century skills and particularly critical thinking.
As often seems to happen for me, reading about one issue sensitizes me to another. The Wall Street Journal published a piece and proposed a service related to developing awareness of extreme political positions contrary to your own. The proposed service took advantage of “research” conducted by Facebook regarding extreme political positions. It was not clear that the Facebook research was related to the accusation that Facebook promoted liberal news stories over conservative stories, but interest in this topic likely encouraged interest in this research and the WSJ awareness of the research. Facebook researchers published a piece in Science (I admit I have not read the original research) on “very” polarized content and the database for this content seems to be the starting point for the WSJ work.
To be clear, the core issue in the WSJ article seems similar to Pariser’s concern that personalized search creates a filter bubble in which individuals are more likely to come in contact with information consistent with existing values rather than information that reflects reality. The idea is that our online history biases what is presented to us because we are likely to regard such results as a successful search and search algorithms want to provide us successful search results. The WSJ article mentions this issue without actually demonstrating this is a reality. This is not the point. What the WSJ article is trying to do (if I understand the intention apart from the other content provided) is to offer the reader a side by side comparison of positions taken on a popular political topic. It is more a way to bring to the attention of the reader extreme contrasting views as a way to encourage awareness.
I found it very interesting to examine the content and to try to mindfully apply the reasons and evidence test as a way to examine the contrasting extremes. I would encourage you do a similar thing. Take an issue – gun control, climate change – and review some of the extreme “news” appearing on Facebook. The WSJ service makes it easy to explore some sample posts. What is the evidence offered in justifying any reasons given? I think approaching this demonstration using this technique adds something to what the WSJ proposes.
