These Whartonites Want To Burst Your Political Bubble

President Donald Trump

The bulletins are composed by all three, leading to what Bell calls an “all-hands-on-deck situation,” because after all these are B-school students with classes to take — but also because they are not just aggregating the news. There’s some art, too. After all, it’s 2017: News needs a personal touch. Each email contains jokes (“What did the tree say to spring? What a re-leaf”), famous quotes, ways to wins prizes, and links to recommended books.

‘PEOPLE THAT REALLY ENGAGE IN CONVERSATIONS WITH THE WORLD WANT TO BREAK OUT OF THEIR BUBBLES’

News needs a personal touch, but it lost something when it turned into an echo chamber of one’s previously held beliefs.

“We believe bubbles were created because people have selection of friends and selection of feeds, and news sources really home in on that in targeting people,” Filippell says. “What we found over the past year is that real events are happening and people that really engage in conversations with the world want to break out of their bubbles and not just do something that validates or reaffirms their beliefs.”

Adds Alexander: “There’s also a problem of exposure and knowledge on other sources. If you are a reader who skews either liberal or conservative, you may not necessarily know about the wealth of sources out there that represent an opposing point of view on any given topic. So even if you wanted to better understand the other side, if you were using Facebook, if you were using Google News, if you were using Twitter it might be very difficult for you to break out of that news bubble on your own. And so we’re here to kind of bridge that gap across the political aisle.”