美国国家公共电台 NPR Tech Creates Our Political Echo Chambers. It Might Also Be A Solution

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

About two-thirds of adults get their news on social media. That's according to the Pew Research Center. During the presidential campaign, we saw how easily tech can polarize our country. But can it also help bring people together? From WBUR in Boston, Asma Khalid reports on some experiments trying to do just that.

ASMA KHALID, BYLINE¹: Alison Lu had voted for Hillary Clinton, and she was in shock on election night.

ALISON LU: Confusion as to, you know, what was going on, why it was happening.

KHALID: She opened her Facebook page searching for answers. But she couldn't find any Trump²-supporting friends.

LU: You know, none of them showed themselves on my Facebook feed.

KHALID: To figure things out, she joined this new online platform her Harvard Business School classmate had created. It's called Hi From The Other Side. The goal is to take two people, one Donald Trump supporter, one Hillary Clinton supporter, match them up, introduce them and allow them to talk in real life.

LU: Because at that time, I think there was, like, a general sense of helplessness on my end, I just wanted to do something to try to help me just understand.

KHALID: Lu was matched up with Dennis O'Brien, a 26-year-old working in IT security. She came to our studios. And together, we gave O'Brien a ring on skype.

(SOUNDBITE OF RINGING)

DENNIS O'BRIEN: Hey, it's been awhile. I'm in a Dunkin' Donuts. I just got out of work.

KHALID: O'Brien had voted for Trump. After the election, he remembers seeing young women crying.

O'BRIEN: All these people were, like, legitimately³ terrified. And I couldn't wrap my mind around why.

KHALID: He wanted to know why. And so when he saw something about Hi From The Other Side on Facebook...

O'BRIEN: I just clicked it and said, all right, you know, what the heck? I can meet someone new, and I can learn about why - you know, what's going through everybody else's mind a little bit.

KHALID: Think of it as going on a blind date to talk politics. On a random⁴ Tuesday night, Lu and O'Brien met up at a burger place in Cambridge. Here's how they both remember it.

O'BRIEN: We were there for, like, two hours. She wasn't crazy. There was never a moment where I felt stupid or I felt like, you know, I was an idiot. And, you know, likewise towards her.

LU: He's not, like, you know, racist⁵ and bigoted⁶, like I think the stereotype⁷ - right? - of some Trump supporters are. And I think what helps was also we were able to find a little bit of common ground.

KHALID: Common ground on climate change. But they both also realized they probably just have different priorities.

LU: I really wouldn't say that our conversation really changed each other's minds at all. But it was valuable to have that new perspective.

O'BRIEN: You know, we were both very open to what the other one had to say when. No one got mad.

KHALID: And that is the goal for Henry Tsai. He created High From The Other Side.

HENRY TSAI: The day after the election, it was kind of clear that discourse⁸ in this country was not maybe where we want it to be. There's a lot of demonizing or dismissiveness.

KHALID: Tsai says about 4,500 people have signed up. It's an online platform. But he admits for it to work, you have to take the conversation offline and meet in real life - or at least via video chat. Lu and O'Brien agree.

O'BRIEN: I think social media just helps reinforce the hate. It just pushes everybody apart because, you know, when I see something, I'm not talking to a person. I'm just typing a bunch of letters in a message.

KHALID: And those online messages tend to polarize us politically. That's what Deb Roy noticed. During the campaign, he and his team at the MIT Media Lab tracked every tweet about presidential politics in the country. And as they looked at this big data, they wondered, what if you could flip⁹ your Twitter feed and see the world through someone else's eyes?

DEB ROY: And what if some of the things you experience actually aren't so different, aren't so foreign, aren't so disconnected from your interests.

KHALID: Roy and his team created a way to do this, an online tool called FlipFeed. Roy says downloads are in the thousands. But he also insists this was not designed as a consumer product. It's a lab experiment. Still, he's optimistic that tech can be used to create empathy. Of course, the major hitch¹⁰ is that these tech projects take initiative from users, and maybe a lot of us are just content to passively roam around our own social media bubbles. For NPR News, I'm Asma Khalid.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 legitimately   

ad.合法地；正当地，合理地

参考例句：

• The radio is legitimately owned by the company. 该电台为这家公司所合法拥有。
• She looked for nothing save what might come legitimately and without the appearance of special favour. 她要的并不是男人们的额外恩赐，而是合法正当地得到的工作。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

4 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

5 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

6 bigoted   

adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的

参考例句：

• He is so bigoted that it is impossible to argue with him.他固执得不可理喻。
• I'll concede you are not as bigoted as some.我承认你不象有些人那么顽固。

7 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

8 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

9 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

10 hitch   

v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉

参考例句：

• They had an eighty-mile journey and decided to hitch hike.他们要走80英里的路程，最后决定搭便车。
• All the candidates are able to answer the questions without any hitch.所有报考者都能对答如流。