How algorithms encroach collective consciousness by perpetuating social disparities across user populations 

By Anatole Hurta

As midterms come to a close, students are fully enveloped by their monotonous routines: classes, or lack thereof, work, Hogs’ games, Dickson, repeat. During the whirlwind that is fall semester, it is easy to look toward media consumption for a certain relief—an escape from the mundane. Even better, as a vehicle tapping into collective consciousness.

There are concerts every week, grand openings left and right, Fits N’ Shit feature dreams, and whatever else going on to capture the attention of the Razorbacks for a week, a month, or, if they’re lucky, a semester. As students share and swipe, they are participating in culturally defining moments almost without realizing it.

While students endlessly scroll, double-tap and repost, there’s something to be said about encountering a political think piece amid Spotify shares and giveaway tags. Every so often, students click onto the article, browse for a moment, then go on about their day. Some might reshare. Some might go on a tangent in separate threads. But when it is all said and done, what exactly is being done?

In fall 2025, there was a flood of politically charged discussion commanding every institution. Following Charlie Kirk’s gripping assignation on Sept. 10, 2025, whether in the classroom or a church service, political hot topics were tossed around in mouths that had never before tasted the lingo; they liked it.

Critiques on gun violence, Christian nationalism, the “liberal agenda,” ICE and so many more topics dominated mainstream media for months. Suddenly, everyone was a political scientist, a politician and a human rights activist.

Where did it go?

These once intrinsic matters, divulging perpetual angst across arguably every community, dissipated. Political conversations don’t jump off the radar because the underlying issues vanish. They disappear from attention.

This article questions what constant media movement does to students’ ability to both develop and sustain affective political consciousness.

Time and time again this cycle repeats in American media: uncover, fixate, disappear, dissolve.

According to a 2026 study, the sweeping resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 proceeding George Floyd’s murder, became a defining example, famous for its enormous media attention, protests and political discussion, but is now fading beyond mainstream attention.

More recently, France noted how the No Kings protests have catalyzed their own waves of political discussion since their debut on June 14, 2025. Yet, as one story replaced the other, where did the conversation go?

It’s one thing to pass people holding signs on the way to buy groceries, but it is another to be informed.

Political awareness and political consciousness, however, are not necessarily the same thing.

Dr. Dara Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas, describes political consciousness as “…the operationalization of the understanding that you are part of a group based on some shared characteristic and the belief that your group would benefit from working together to achieve policy change or representation.”

Put simply, students may view a TikTok, repost a major headline, argue in comments or vaguely know a politician’s name without understanding who they are as part of a larger group with shared political interests. For Gaines, political consciousness beckons something beyond exposure. It requires recognizing where an individual fits within society and processing that collective action matters.

This distinction is increasingly complicated because not everyone shares media echo chambers at the same time or in the same way.

This brings the definition of dominant culture and understanding how it affects every system across the United States.

Gaines describes dominant culture as “the reference group.” She explains it as “how we decide what’s normal or what’s out of the ordinary.”

Gaines said media outlets are important tools for political socialization and agenda-setting. When a dominant culture sets expectations, an agenda or goals, media can help define what is deemed acceptable, shameful or, in some cases, criminal.

While what gets repeatedly showcased becomes difficult to ignore, what fades away is forgotten. This doesn’t mean the issue itself has changed or been amended, only that people’s relationship with it has. A story that once blared across every headline dwindles to a distant whisper. For students whose political information arrives through personalized feeds, the question becomes even more nuanced: what happens when everyone is presented with something different?

Gaines does not entirely attribute individualism to the direct breakdown of collective consciousness. Instead, she draws attention to individualism as a deeply embedded part of American philosophy.

“The idea of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, the idea of ‘getting what’s yours’—those are in direct opposition to the idea of collective consciousness and identity,” Gaines explained.

Gaines said when there are cracks in the collective consciousness, the individual can be ostracized, especially when they do not fit the expectations of the dominant culture.

“The individual is sort of left out there alone,” she said.

If political consciousness requires recognizing individuals as members of larger groups, what happens when our media environments deliver separate information to us as individuals?

For U of A junior Jaxon Kunath, the answer may begin with where the information he receives is sourced. Kunath was asked to define political consciousness.

“I don’t know at all,” he said. “I think it’s like being aware of what’s going on, being aware by getting news from multiple sources instead of one.”

When asked whether he knew about the arrests and assaults of Alissa Hackett and Tedrick Washington, Kunath said he had never heard of them.

Why?

“Because I get my news on TikTok,” he said.

His answer is not clear evidence of political apathy; however, it demonstrates the increasingly important role of the information arena itself. Where students acquire information determines which stories make it into their political awareness in the first place. Kunath may know what is happening pertaining to his feed. But what about what is happening beyond it?

The answer may have as much to do with algorithms as it does with individual choice.

TikTok and other media platforms do not present their users with chronological lists of everything occurring across the globe. Systems based on recommendations determine what videos, topics and stories are granted continual exposure. For students who primarily ascertain news via social media, political consciousness therefore develops in a selective space.

Algorithms muddle the relationship between political awareness and individual choice. Media platforms dictate which stories their users repeatedly encounter and which receive little attention. According to Okoronkwo’s research on algorithmic bias in media, distribution examines how these systems can shape media consumption, thus affecting diversity representation. Similarly, a 2023 study examined personalization algorithms through racial discourse communities as they raise questions about how these systems shape media experiences. Here, political awareness jointly depends on what students choose to see and what their media environments make visible.

These limitations are even more significant when accounting for racial disparities online. Olsen reported on algorithmic bias and research linking online racism to negative mental health trends among Black adolescents. Despite focusing on mental health as opposed to political news visibility, this highlights the larger consequences stemming from algorithmically mediated online participation. If political consciousness requires acknowledging shared stories, unequal representation may levy how individuals understand their place within a larger community..

The distinction is crucial.

It is easy to claim people are not paying attention, but it is another matter to determine whether or not people were actually given the opportunity to see. Here, the news cycle, algorithm and individual feed divulge into the same process where a story emerges; attention swarms, users repeatedly interact and then another story steals its gravity.

Uncover. Fixate. Disappear. Dissolve.

But disappearance from one’s feed does not indicate the disappearance from people’s lives; this is apparent in the local cases of Alissa Hackett and Tedrick Washington.

As reported by Matt Campbell in the Arkansas Times, on Aug. 1, 2026, Arkansas State Trooper Moisses Arellano stopped 18-year-old Alissa Hackett,a black woman, for speeding near Manila. The seemingly routine traffic stop ended with Arellano throwing Hackett to the ground while trying to handcuff her, then repeatedly punching her in the face. The dashcam footage taken became public record and prompted quick scrutiny over the trooper’s conduct.

As entailed by Grant Lancaster in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas State Police completed an internal investigation of the events recorded. Campbell also reported that Arellano failed to identify himself to the teen and administered excessive use of profanity during the interaction. Moving forward, they recommended not to make those mistakes again.

The incident received attention, but like many stories traveling through social media what happens after initial attention drifts? For Hackett, the encounter on Aug. 1 did not end when the video stopped circulating.

But Hackett’s experience is not an isolated incident. Just a few weeks later, Tedrick Wahsington, a young black man, was assaulted during an encounter with an Arkansas State Police trooper, shown in a video of the incident and reporting from the Arkansas Times. As the footage publicly circulated, attention was drawn to the force used against Washington.

Like Hackett’s case, the incident became part of the larger conversation surrounding policing, race and accountability. Yet these conversations exist within a media forum constantly shifting to the next story. If Hackett’s story raises questions about what happens when public attention fades, Washington’s raises a similar one about what happens when the same kind of story repeats itself.

Gaines said her initial reaction to the incidents involving Hackett and Washington was “disgust, anxiety, fear.”

“The way they were treated was reprehensible,” Gaines said. “I’m heartbroken for each of them.”

Then she offered a distinction that sits at the larger conversation regarding news cycles: “The trauma from something like this doesn’t go away when the news cycle changes.”

Headlines may vanish. The consequences do not. Who gets remembered when the video dissipates?

Gaines’s definition of dominant culture returns here since it serves as a reference point to determine what is normal versus abnormal, making media visibility more than a simple matter of what is trending. It’s a question of whose experiences are repeatedly presented as worthy of attention.

These incidents exist in a much longer history of how Black Americans have been represented in American political and media culture.

Gaines echoes the racialized portrayals of Black Americans and stereotypes connecting Blackness with criminality have appeared throughout American history, including, but not limited to, political rhetoric, news coverage and racial violence narratives.

This history is essential because framing does not only happen through what a story says. It is done through what a story emphasizes and what context it echoes when the coverage ends. Visibility and disappearance are both forms of media attention strategy.

So, what does staying informed require?

Gaines’ definition of dominant culture offers an answer: staying informed requires recognizing that all people are part of a group. It requires acknowledging shared interests. And it calls for understanding that working together can produce truly definitive policy change and representation.

That is strenuous in an environment built around individualized consumption, stifling awareness. Some students may be receiving political information without sharing the same details with the people sitting beside them. For one student, it may be a protest. For another, a football highlight. Then for another, they see none of it because students live inside different versions of the same media sources. Political consciousness requires connection, but modern media continuously perpetuates individualism.

So how can these spaces be bridged?

For Gaines, the answer is not to find one idealized source; neither is it to force everyone into the same political conversation. It starts with the conversation itself.

“I’m a strong proponent of having tough conversations,” Gaines said.

But tough conversations, she said, require respect.

“It takes two willing parties to have a conversation rooted in truth and honesty,” she said. “It means that folks have to do their homework and learn how to LISTEN.”

She emphasized the importance of grappling another person’s experience as opposed to immediately responding from one’s own inherited assumptions.

“Take the chip off your shoulder. Try to center the person and their experience and LISTEN to what they’re saying,” she said.

Gaines said that if people truly listen, they might discover that their differences do not at all erase their similarities.

“We are all still humans trying to make a way,” she said.

And then, inevitably, the scroll continues: classes, work, Dickson, Hog’s games, TikTok, pre-saves, another giveaway, another headline…

Viral.

Another political conversation overtakes the feed; the issue is entirely too grievous to ignore, until replaced.

The question has never been whether another political hot topic will arrive; they always do.

The question is what happens between awareness and action. The conversations don’t really disappear. Sometimes, people just stop listening.