Brooks Davenport

Thesis Research

Feed to Forum: Designing Public Interfaces for the Reinterpretation of News

Feed to Forum explores how the design of public-facing news interfaces can reshape how individuals interpret political information. Rather than attempting to change what people believe, this project focuses on intervening in how beliefs are formed and communicated with others. Contemporary news consumption is largely individualized and algorithmically curated, limiting exposure to differing perspectives and reinforcing isolated interpretive habits. In contrast, this work proposes shared, public interfaces that might “free” news consumption from personalized systems and make multiple framings of the same event visible within a common space.

Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies, I present news interpretation as a process shaped by interactions between media systems, interfaces, environments, and audiences. Ultimately, this project aims to develop a design that promotes interpretive awareness and reduces affective polarization by encouraging engagement across differences.

Keywords: Interface design, interaction design, information design, media studies, news media, human-computer interaction, science and technology studies