Tea Stains: The Destructive Cycles of Internet Drama Communities

"Tea" by chumsdock is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. For as long as there have been Internet communities, there has been drama within them; and as long as there has been Internet drama, there have been people who leap onto it to procure fame and influence for themselves. In communities based on a shared love of specific movies, shows, …

How Social Media Platforms Like Twitter Shape Social Interactions

Everyone seems to use social media these days. Roughly seven in ten Americans told PEW Research that they personally do in 2021. And while the evidence that these forms of communication are replacing in-person interactions is not conclusive, they are certainly at least supplemental. Social Media Landscape by fredcavazza on Flickr. One of the many …

Editorial: An Introduction to Civic Education and Civic Engagement

By Kalum Alldredge, Jenna Denomme, and Thomas Crocker Civic education is a branch of education that has gained more and more traction over the past decade or so, as the need for considering alternative viewpoints, appreciating diversity, and analyzing political occurrences has grown exponentially along with the growth and expansion of technology. What makes this …

You are not immune: Why media literacy must have no exceptions

Media literacy, taught properly, is for everyone - and it must not be applied unevenly I’m a child of liberals. For many years growing up, I watched Good Morning America every week morning, and NBC and CBS every night. My grandfather on my mom’s side, who had proposed Elizabeth Warren as a strong presidential candidate …

The Primal Appeal of Conspiracy Theories

"Conspiracy Nut" by Paradigm is licensed under CC BY 2.0 There's a little conspiracy theorist inside all of us. To best it requires we be critical of both the media we consume, and our own biases. One thing humans are uniquely good at is crafting stories out of disparate threads. One form of those yarns is the conspiracy theory: …

Anatomy of the Alt-Right Pipeline

How YouTube's algorithms have led unsuspecting viewers into the depths of extreme conservatism, and why the problem won't be going away anytime soon "day 12/365" by Shehan Peruma is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. For the companies behind your favorite social media sights, engagement is currency; hence, their algorithms are designed to encourage …