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Mainstream Media Finally Catching On To How News Propagates
Techdirt is reporting that the mainstream press may finally be "getting it" when it comes to how the next generation of news readers consumes and shares news. One student summed it up very succinctly by saying "If the news is that important, it will find me." "According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well -- sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter -- reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com -- with a social one."
"sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks"
Except when the tubes are clogged and my emails take days to get through.
Really? People send each other news stories? Through email? And here I thought moving from making photocopies of the newspaper articles and mailing them through the postal system to using the fax machine was high tech!
Also; email's soooo 1990s. RSS, delicious for: tags and IM messages are how I keep up; mostly RSS.
Dear old media: I know things on the intarwebs change fast, but please try to keep up a bit better?
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Yet another virus post. Link leads to VBS:Malware-gen, hosted at http://mcc.on.nimp.org/blog/1324233/unp48594913.
I don't WANT the mainstream media to "get it". They are run by the multinational corporations and uber-rich people who have no clue nor care about me whatever. Their main purpose is propaganda, secondary purpose is profit.
For instance, in 2000 Ralph Nader wasn't on the ballot in enough states to win the election even if he carried every single state. OTOH the Libertarians were on the ballot in 49 states. The mainstream media slobbered all over Nader but had nary a word to say about the Libertarian.
Had the roles been reversed I'm convinced it would have been Nader who would have been ignored and the Libertarian trumpeted. In a truly democratic republic, all viable candidates (candidates on the ballot in enough states to win should they garner the votes) should have their views aired and be included in debates.
But the people who own the mainstream media are the same people who finance the elections in our pseudodemocratic plutocratic republic. With only two candidates to bribe with campaign cash, no matter who loses they win and you lose.
BTW, I don't give a rat's ass about Britney's drug and child support problems. Why is this meaningless nonsense trumping science, politics, and stuff that truly matters?
They were gioving away copies of the State Journal-Register (Warning - the first item in that link is hilarious) at the store the other day. The man giving them away asked if I ever bought copies. "Nope", I said. "I read it on the internet".
He looked really crestfallen at that, probably more so because of my white goatee.
I would have said "I get my news from links from slashdot" but he wouldn't have had a clue what I was talking about.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
An article along the same lines by The Economist.
Discusses article ordering types for Digg.com
People have learned from experience that the professional news isn't trustworthy. They co-operate to do the best they can in the absence of reputable news sources. How obvious and inevitable. How incredibly insulated from reality do you have to be to not see this?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Or CBS (Rathergate) ....
or NBC (Exploding Trucks)
or CNN (staged Videos)
or
I'm sorry, but unless you're blind, we shouldn't trust "official" news sources at all. I'd rather listen to NPR (quite liberal) AND Fox because I realize that both are filtered news and often ignore facts that don't fit their viewership's points of view. However, it tends to give me a more complete view of events than either provide by themselves.
It is also why I tend to read Slashdot, because of the varied viewpoints of the intellectually elite geeks found here.
In summary, unless you actually listen to Fox News AND NPR and the others, you're only getting partial and 1/2 truths.
I'm curious if you think Hillary lied when she said she ran from the Helicopter to the waiting SUVs in Bosnia, or if you think that was just an over exaggeration after being caught up in the story telling?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Sure, that works for popular news. That's why CNN, foxnews, digg, reddit, etc all have news on Britney Spears or Brad Pitt. If the news gets that critical mass of people, it will make the rounds.
In the Old Media? Hardly.
Case in point: Ron Paul.
His grass roots campaign - composed mainly of the Internet-connected, because the MSM totally suppressed news of him - ended up with a head count comparable to the US troop strength in Iraq and broke all previous fundraising records via individual contributions averaging about $100.
If the operators of the corporate media don't want a story to get out they're fully capable of sitting on it no matter HOW popular is becomes by word-of-mouth - or word-of-net.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way