Course blog 20 (Andrea)

Like many of us, my election day experience was primarily based around social media. I am a compulsive Facebook checker to begin with, and people's election statuses and posts kept me coming back more often than usual. I also read news stories, headlines, and commentary from my Twitter feed. I even watched the coverage of the results that evening via Youtube's live streaming from several different broadcasters.

In the middle of this media binge, however, I was a passive participant, reading without posting or commenting. Part of the reason I kept silent was because of how politically polarized my Facebook feed is. Most of the posters from my hometown are Republicans, and most of the posters from undergrad and especially Bloomington are Democrats. Among the Republicans are most of my family members and some close friends, and while I often talk politics with some of them, I have learned that with others, confrontation isn't worth it. I'm not about to reveal the extent of my leftness to some of my new in-laws, for instance, especially right before I visit them for Thanksgiving.

Here are a few of the Republican Facebook posts on my feed to give you an ethnological sampling:

I'm now hiding all posts about the stupid election. I'm done with it. We are stuck in a nightmare for 4 more years and I do NOT want to be reminded of it every 5 seconds.

I am scared for our country. I am worried for my children's future. However, God is in control over EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY! So, I will place my trust in Him alone and ignore the fact that the democrats think sin is ok, that we have a national debt that rivals no other is ok, the fact that a majority of Americans can barely make ends meet and are soon to be met with higher taxes, higher groceries and I'm sure higher gas costs are ok. 

Here's my election night map. Romney wins. Romney 270 / Obama 268 electoral votes. #wsjmap http://t.co/PjkrShyc via @wsj

Calling it for Obama. Oh well...

Welllll... On the bright side, I baked some delicious Nutella cookies tonight...

Other people have already posted suggestions for how to curate this kind of social media experience in a museum, so I will focus on the polarization aspect of my election day. I would like a museum display to show a little about these two environments: the conservative rural small town and the liberal college town, places within easy driving distance of each other. Visitors to the museum would enter through a common space or passageway that would display some of the public representations of political belief: Facebook, Twitter, political TV ads, yard signs. These would be accompanied by short descriptions of why these public demonstrations are socially significant and politically influential  in the election cycle. From this public domain, they could move through two different doorways leading from the passageway--one to the right and one to the left. The room to the right would contain a reenactment of a scene from the conservative small town, and the room on the left would contain a reenactment from a more liberal environment. The goal would be to show a more nuanced view of both sides than their public personas can reveal, just as Iris hoped to do with her interlinked status updates and comments, and also to show a little of the different environments that form these polarized views.