An Xiao Mina takeaway
First, I’m not that familiar or good with memes, but this was what I had in mind:
A memorable takeaway:
“I often think that the memes that have a larger impact on society create a narrative viewpoint that allows for bloggers, journalists, news commentators, politicians and others, to continue that discourse, and then it becomes amplified. Of course, there is inevitable pushback, but that’s part of what it means to start having a larger discourse.”
On going beyond our “filter bubbles” on social media:
Social media is a gateway to teach us ideas and viewpoints that we may have little-to-no familiarity of. An Xiao Mina defines filter bubbles as people only visiting other people on the Internet who align with their views, or “living in our bubbles.” Staying in our “filter bubbles” could be helpful or not helpful to you, but curiosity can prompt you to dive into a rabbit hole of memes across the political spectrum (even if it means setting your Internet browsers to some sort of “private mode” or creating “alter ego” social media accounts).
Meedan, a digital nonprofit supporting journalism and news literacy around the world, should be a name journalists should remember as we are currently living in a time of mass disinformation online (especially on social media). But at the same time, social media could introduce (and teach) us communities that we may have little familiarity of. If we already have knowledge of such community beforehand, social media could also offer us similar communities that might be scattered across the world, sometimes with regionalized thinking. And expect memes.
