A first year UCG project addressing opinions, groups and bubble dynamics in modern society.
Over the past few months, we have studied the dynamics of myth emergence in our society. On this website, we have divided our findings into five subtopics that make up the subpages of this website;
While reading through the website you will be challenged to open up your mind towards the emergence of different opinions and narratives within our society, and help you consider how you and your bubble construct and limit your worldview.
<aside> 👁️🗨️ Bubble: A group of people held together by a common belief/opinion which selects information that reinforces their pre-existing world view, and avoids interaction with other viewpoints.
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Daniel's diagram depicting the basics of bubbles and their interactions.
Let us get a basic sense of what bubbles are and how they work:
Let us place you in the blue bubble. You join "us", the most correct group of them all. We exist in harmony; agree with each other on basically everything. We are the good side; the educated ones, the sensible ones; and our group provides us all with a sense of identity. Our information originates from the best experts and websites, which we have scrutinsed heavily. We rely on trusted sources to give us the information; information that seems to always agree and support our view of life.
As you stumble through the internet, you notice an unfamiliar website; covering a topic you know about. However, they understand it differently. They look at it in completely the wrong way. Their logic is stupid; it's like a propaganda piece. Perhaps you continue reading just for self-amusement, and laugh the article off as a joke, a "great satire piece" perhaps. The website also has a discussion forum, and you take a quick peak; hoping to see readers pointing out how dumb the article is. But alas, they agree with the article, and go even further still.
You've entered the "them" bubble; one that our blue bubble ignores and keeps away. Our blue bubble has warned you that they are the bad side, that they are wrong, evil, and dishonest.
So, how do you interact with the red "them" bubble? Do you attack their views; laugh at them; argue with them? Or do you just ignore it and go back to your bubble?
Funnily enough, we were the very same people in the blue bubble at the beginning of the course. We examined bubble dynamics in five groups; each explaining different aspects and intricacies of bubble dynamics. We hope that after looking through our findings, you can answer the questions above and reflect on your own position.