Louis Shalako
Am I living in a filter bubble?
I don’t know. Why do you ask?
Are you genuinely concerned for my informational
needs, or is this just a polite opening where we quickly move on, to saying
that I don’t agree with you and that therefore I am an idiot?
When someone says ‘people
are living in filter bubbles’ it is possible that they have an agenda. They
want to begin their lecture now...
In my case, I would have to say the answer is no.
On the Toronto Sun website, I am allowed ten
free articles per month. Sometimes I go to the site and find a story that
interests me. I can get the same story somewhere else, in fact I usually have
already. What interests me is the spin.
What interests me is the reaction.
The spin is one thing, the comments section is often
pure swamp for some reason. Now, when I am reading an acknowledged
leftward-leaning news source, the spin isn’t quite so apparent.
We must assume
it is there, perhaps rendered invisible because for the most part we agree—there’s
nothing there so egregious that it begs contradiction. We might quibble on the
details, or the dearth or abundance of coverage of any particular issue.
Recently, the big story provincially is the rise in
the minimum wage. I can read liberal papers, and see what stories they carry.
Then I can go off to the conservative papers, and see what they are saying. And yes, I already have my own opinion. Most of us
do—we already have our opinions.
The columnists have their own slant, and they’re
carrying the flag to some extent when they write for public consumption, i.e.,
the sort of folks that subscribe to that particular outlet, and presumably to
that particular outlook.
I’m not a card-carrying party member. In the past, and
I am fifty-eight years old, I have voted Green Party once. I have voted
multiple times for the NDP and the Liberals, federally and provincially. I know
who on city council has run in federal or provincial elections and for what
party they ran. Once I was sorely tempted to vote Conservative, mostly in
protest of an incumbent Liberal that I didn’t much like.
To have a range of opinions, which don’t always
coincide with any particular party template, to more or less agree with a
position, perhaps to support a side
would be a better expression, is not the same thing as living in a filter
bubble. Of course I’m looking for facts to support that. That’s because I have an agenda too.
It’s pretty simple, actually.
I
would like to know the facts.
When I read a local paper, I am perfectly aware that
head office has a conservative or liberal outlook on things. And things are
complicated—the real trolls in the comment section seem to have a simple,
ideological answer for everything, and anyone who doesn’t agree is living in a filter bubble.
Because we’re not too fond of listening to them.
That’s why it quickly gets so personal when someone disagrees or tries to
introduce some facts which have been left out. They have the pulpit and they
don’t want to let it go.
They have their beliefs.
They don’t need to convince themselves or their
fellow-travelers. They need to convince that silent, middle of the road
majority, who, if they are listening at all, must be rather appalled by all of
this. All of these opposing claims—contradictory
claims.
Looking at my search history, I can see that I read
dozens of stories and publications daily.
For the most part, these are credible sources of a liberal social, economic and political
nature.
They are the more forward-looking and thoughtful publications out
there, and yes, that does include the local (arguably, socially, a little bit
conservative) paper a lot of the time. Every once in a while, we run into a
real dog and we wonder why anyone would even bother…anyways, that is my bias.
It’s a lot better than what the amateurs are saying
when they get all riled up on ideological grounds and then turn everything into
character or moral judgements, using the most simplistic and bigoted reasoning known to man.
Maybe that’s because things are complicated.
And amateurs are amateurs.
END
Louis Shalako books and stories are
available from Amazon.
Thank you for reading.
