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."

Comments

Maybe true, but ...

[Bombula]

It may be true that social networks act as news filters, but that doesn't make them good news filters. How popular information propagates and the value of that information are two entirely separate issues. They seem muddied in the summary, and even in the article to a degree.

Traditional news broadcasters do a reasonable job of filtering information, but people tend to seek out filters that match their own interests, which is not only why news is broken up into sections on BBC's website, but why we have "News for Nerds" on slashdot, and news for surfers on surfline, etc.

Re:Maybe true, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. A good example is Obama's racist church.

It's old news. Seriously old news. The sermons frequently quoted are from before Obama was a senator. People had been pointing out Obama's connection to a racist church and a seriously crazy religion since he started his campaign. It's nothing new, he's been a member for 20 years. It should not be news.

But it all got filtered out in the Obama love-storm that enveloped the Democratic party. Everyone loved Obama, so the social sites just ignored (or, in Slashdot's case, actively modded down) anyone pointing out Obama's connections to the Trinity United Church of Christ and to the amazingly racist views coming from there.

But then the sermons hit YouTube, and people suddenly have a single sound-bite that they can latch on to. Now all of a sudden with a simple video, people are willing to accept what has been known for the entire election: Obama belongs to a racist church, and has as a mentor a pastor who believes that AIDS was created by the US government as a biological weapon to wipe out black people.

It's old news, which was silently filtered out as "unpopular" for the longest time. So it seems new now - but it wasn't. It was just ignored. Modded down, so to speak, for going against the current pro-Obama group-think.

Re:News? Hardy

[techpawn]

a more accurate term would be gossip.

Yeah, but advertisers have known this for a while.
Word of mouth from a "trusted source" carriers far more weight than from just a talking head; even when the trusted source is quoting the talking head

Re:The obvious down side

[FredFredrickson]

As the trend continues, people are going to be even less likely to hear opposing points of view. If your circle of friends is the only group that sends you news, and your circle of friends tends to think/agree with your point of view, you'll be even more insulated. I predict the opposite. I predit that articles and info from both sides of the spectrum hit me, and that the way I receive my news (friends, groups, slashdot) provides discussion on all sorts of news and allows me to develop an opinion- even if the comments are just slashdot readers playing devils advocate.

Compare that with just watching fox news...