The purpose of this study is to examine if, and in that case how, students at Uppsala University are affected by their Instagram feeds and how that will influence the decisions students make in relation to a political election. In addition to this, we also intend to examine how students' perceptions of politics in a more global aspect may be affected by this. To answer the purpose, the following questions are used: - How can filter bubbles and echo chambers on Instagram affect students' opportunities to make well-informed decisions, especially in relation to political elections? - How can students' Instagram feeds affect their perception of world politics? To receive the empirical material ten qualitative interviews are conducted. Based on the empirical material a text analysis is done. We used Jürgen Habermas theory of the Public Sphere and the theory of Selective Exposure. The result of the study is mainly that the echo chambers that exist in students' Instagram feeds have such a large impact that it cannot be claimed that they can make a completely well-informed decision. And that students' perception of the outside world gives them a more global enlightenment of the political events that take place in the outside world, while due to its filtered Instagram feeds they do not get a holistic view from all perspectives of the events. This result provides information about the effects that echo chambers and filter bubbles can have and it may be an explanation of the ongoing polarization in the global political climate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-434004 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Westin, Lisa, Rask, Michaela |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Medier och kommunikation, Uppsala universitet, Medier och kommunikation |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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