Political Narratives in a Digitized World: The Role of Media and Narratives in the Age of COVID
The information age has launched an era of abundance characterized by constancy and pervasiveness of media technology in 24-hour news cycles. With the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic, media landscapes which create a continuous feed of information dictated by algorithms, preferences, and digital footprints, exacerbated the risks of political polarization through the creation of echo chambers and filter bubbles, especially in social media platforms. The media has been a central means by which people have learned to internalize political systems and its norms and contemporary issues. Media narratives, be it constructed and disseminated through films, documentaries, news reports, etc., weave together ideas, events, and socio-political ideologies, that we interpret through juxtapositions with hypotheticals, individual experiences, and opinions. As the politicization of the COVID-19 public health crisis that began in 2019 showed, the media can be weaponized as an ideological apparatus that has the power to establish alternative facts and peddle misinformation.
Faculty mentor: Prof. Abraham Abusharif
