Watch this video first.
Okay, now we are on the same page. Not to point out the obvious to anyone, but the Media (yes, capital M implying a singular entity, which I defend with giant conglomerate media companies) – it is a cesspool of suckage. It is a buy-product of an era where people had at most two venues for information (newspaper and network television), mediated by whatever network affiliates found interesting for the day. It is dying. And it is scary because it is the thing I always thought I would be involved with, career-wise. I think this video gently pokes fun at how predictable, unimaginative, and formulaic it comes across to audiences.
Now we have Twitter, RSS feeds, and even Facebook to receive what we consider pertinent information. The question that haunts me, and shapes most of my academic interest, is what classifies information as pertinent. Is it demarcated as interesting because it pops up in a news feed of Facebook, or truncated in a 140 character tweet? It’s a complicated issue to think about, considering how diverse motivations for information gathering can be. For some, news is simply something to talk to others about (social stitching?) and for others, it is to be engaged in a global environment.
This is an open-ended dialogue. What does news look like to you? Why is it useful? What types of information are compelling to you?