Читать книгу Rethinking Digital Native Comunicators Training - Cristina Pulido Rodriguez - Страница 14

The experiment shows that the educational device raises an awareness amongst the students. It appears that they acquired a much more detailed and personal understanding of the stakes of customization mechanisms by testing them. If the findings about the algorithms were partly known, they weren’t the main focus of the experiment. It was rather a question of finding a way of making students apprehend the issues raised by these new “actants” and the impact they have both on their own daily uses and on the journalistic field. It led to a reflection on the use of social networks as sources and as distribution channels. The students assessed their own journalistic practices and the reflexes to be developed.

Finally, this experiment confirmed our belief that journalism and media education should integrate digital uses and a better understanding of the operations and issues related to the algorithms that weigh on our access to information. But as Facebook is tightening up its security parameters, having our own testing environment seems both more practical and safer to our students. It allows them to test how an algorithm is reacting to their own preferences.