Introduction paragraph: Link Topic(Don’t just cite, add context for each example)(Link demographics with my personal filter bubble) – my household, demographics and area, socioeconomic-cultural background (Class, race, Gender)My parents did not have much of a political view, but I gained my filter bubble through the peers I grew up with. Living in Houston, school was always a melting pot of culture. Our high school had a 79% minority rate, with 44% Hispanic, 20% Black, 21% White, and 13% Asian. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/texas/districts/houston-independent-school-district/bellaire-high-school-19231/student-body Despite this, there was a severe economic disparity between members of the school. Bellaire had a sweeping change of demographics from whites to immigrants within nearby apartment complexes in the attendance zone. To keep the whites attending Bellaire, the high school added IB programs that created a dichotomy of privilege between students. On one side, there was a class with conservative children of the elite and solid upbringing, while a couple classrooms away there was a class that had extremely lower standards for both students and teacher alike, usually consisting of minorities. A research study conducted by Richard alba et al. concluded that educational policy protects the advantages of native students through intervention by the parents of these students when the advantages are threatened. (The integration Imperative: The Children of Low-Status Immigrants in the Schools of Wealthy Society) Students in AP/IB programs would rarely take a regular class and it was often looked down upon, creating a larger split between the two groups. (LINK BACK TO SELF) – maybe combine this with the 3rdThe divide between the (DEFINE ASPECTS OF PRIVILEGE: accumulated family wealth, cultural capital and social capital) privileged and the under privileged has increased, but the conservative population had also decreased significantly by the time I had attended. The minority population was majority liberal and democratic, while the white population was mostly Jewish, an ethnicity with twice asmany self-identified liberals than conservatives. The IB/AP programs now had an unbalanced mix of majority left leaning with minority right leaning political ideologies. This allowed for more open conversation with liberal political views, while the conservative students bit their tongue in fear of being ridiculed. Many students were empowered with this democratic filter bubble and participated in rallies and protests, while others would be increasingly outspoken on social media. Upon revisiting this memory, I had to include that despite having a majority of liberal thought in the IB/AP programs, there was a slight racism within the intersection of active liberals. (Class lecture, 3-18-19) Black students were under spoken for within this sphere of political conversation and participation because only a handfulattended the IB/AP programs. Most of the black students in the area were heavily underprivileged, making it harder for them to perform well in an academic setting. (personal intersectionality needs to be added)I had attended Bellaire’s AP program for 4 years, slowly inheriting liberal viewpoints through social media; reposts of clips on Facebook and Tumblr consisting of many shows with a democratic influence. Being part of the dance club also influenced me to listened to hiphop and rap music, where the artists are mostly minorities and more often than not hold strong democratic opinions. I scorned news networks like FOX NEWS for being ridiculously bias, while I continued to consume media from equally biased networks in my filter bubble such as CNN. Before, I did not realize that both of these networks are similar in that they were inspired by sports networks in the way that they dramatize news and focus more on entertainment than original reporting. (CNN treats politics like sports – and it’s making us all dumber VOX) The two main social media platforms I frequented in my developing years, Tumblr and Facebook, funneled my news and entertainment exposure to similarly liberal shows like The Daily Show and Buzzfeed through algorithms that feed you content based on previous content you liked (How to seek truth in the era of fake news – Christiane Amanpour). According to “What you know depends on what you watch: Current events knowledge across popular news sources”, the news that I consumed had a negative impact on my current event knowledge. In this study, approximately one thousand respondents were asked for their news consumption preferences and also asked to answer 9 questions about political affairs. The results showed that Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC were the least informative media sources, with Fox and MSNBC scoring worse than consuming no news media at all. When I graduated and began to attend Texas A&M, I was exposed to both the good and the bad of republicans conservative view-radical conservative personalities on campus such as brother jeb-filter gap: I didn’t understand their logic because my filter bubble fear mongered me into believing the other side was morally wrong (Class Lecture: fear mongering) (how do filter bubbles create gaps? I don’t know) (Dr.Hernandez tribalism, socialization to hate opposition)-proceeded to meet well educated classmates who helped me understand the logic behind conservative view points more than ever beforeRealized that political ideology no matter what side, is just that. Political ideology. Inherently, it isnot polarized. It is the media sources which we consume that dictate polarization. (interaction between media and political ideology exponentializes the effect of tribalism and entrenchment towards self confirming (confirmation bias) information).Now that I understand, it is important to share this knowledge and reduce filter bubbles. (change transition sentence)(Steps to take- explain action taken and not just thought or openmindedness)To see beyond our filter bubble we must commit to consuming media from non-partial sources dedicated to objectivity. As Lara Setrakian states, we must embrace complexity within news to understand more-often-than-not complex issues and policies from all angles in order to reach anobjective truth. When we do this we can objectively see effective policies for what they are, and harmful ones as well. (gaps between our filter bubbles will decrease)Add conclusion The context of an