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Mainstream Media Finally Catching On To How News Propagates 159

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the whole-new-idea-of-trusted-networks dept.
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."
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Mainstream Media Finally Catching On To How News Propagates

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  • Slight problem for slashdot readers and others... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dpx420 ( 1210902 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:20PM (#22895510)
    Who don't have any friends.
    • Who don't have any friends.

      But you do get to share in a community of readers who never read the news articles or get the wrong end of the stick. I mean this wouldn't be slashdot if we didn't start reacting to the article summary that has little or nothing to do with the referenced article ;)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by call-me-kenneth ( 1249496 )
        Hmmm, out of the last 19,801 BBC News stories here in my RSS reader, perhaps half a dozen at most were things that I or someone in my "link emailing social circle" would have come across by ourselves. This just sounds like the sort of Webtopia bullshit the Reg is good at calling out.... sorry, given a choice of having only the BBC for news, and only stuff that gets emailed around... I think I'll be sticking with the BBC and paying my license fee.
    • Slight problem for slashdot readers and others...Who don't have any friends.

      That's just because they're newbies and haven't used the friends/foes tool yet.

      See the FAQ on friends. Or hit the little clear button on postings by other slashdot users whose opinions you like and trust, and would like to see more of / have highlighted (or whose postings you DON'T like and don't want to see any more).
      • Here's the FAQ on friends [slashdot.org].

        • Re:Here's the FAQ (Score:4, Informative)

          by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:54PM (#22896824) Journal
          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?

          • There is too much news (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Nerdposeur ( 910128 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @02:22PM (#22897270) Journal

            People have learned from experience that the professional news isn't trustworthy.

            And even if it is, it often isn't relevant to our lives. Yes, everything affects everything else at some level, but the truth is that most of what you read in a newspaper doesn't is irrelevant to you, out of your realm of influence, or merely speculative. Pick up a year-old newspaper and see how compelling it is.

            Psychologically, it's interesting to consider that while a major tragedy may happen to you or someone close to you just a handful of times in your life, a major tragedy is happening somewhere to somebody every hour. There was a time when we were blissfully unaware of that fact. Now we have a constant barrage of it. It is wearying, and to cope we have to tune a lot of it out.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by eikonos ( 779343 )
              You've hit on an important point: tragedy does happen daily, but it doesn't stop the tragedy or improve my life and happiness to know all about it.

              Taking it a step further, I think that the evening news and "cop drama shows" create an atmosphere and culture where violence and mistrust are normal. We know that copycat crimes happen, so it is possible that the news actually increases general levels of crime?
          • Of course the LameStreamMedia "gets it" (and not finally, nimrods) - what do you think net neutrality is all about?????

      • That's just because they're newbies and haven't used the friends/foes tool yet.

        I've been on Slashdot for around six years, and am well aware of this feature. However, I've never used it and hence have no "friends" or "foes". Has very little to do with my sociability or lack of it- it's simply that I wasn't that bothered about using a feature/tool which happens to use those labels as a convenience.

        For "friends" at the very least, the words don't even have the exact same connotations as they do in everyday use. If nothing else, Slashdot "friend"-ships are one-directional, as are foes

    • I just updated our "relationship", and so you've got a friend now :-)
    • Well, if the news is that important, it will still reach us:

      China blows up-->Gold Farming disappears
      President assassinated-->YouTube servers bogged down
      All fruit becomes sterile and withered due to an alien virus-->Apple changes its logo and name

  • Brittney (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wiredlogic ( 135348 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:21PM (#22895530)
    Somehow news of Brittney's latest pecadillo always manages to find me despite my struggle to be ignorant of her existence. I don't even have to use her full name for you to know who I'm talking about. With mainstream media there is still the problem that they play to the lowest common denominator of consumers. The type who buy Star magazine.

    • Re:Brittney (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mikkeles ( 698461 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:40PM (#22895866)
      Well, I have a Brittany Setter (cross betwixt a Brittany Spaniel and an English Setter), although her name is Elanor (after the flower in LoTR) and she does get in some pecadillos (mostly consisting of toodling off into the back 40 for hours at a time ignoring calls to return); but I can't see why that would be news of interest to anyone but me (but I'm sure that she doesn't care).

      (P.s. You spelt Brittany wrong.)

    • I admit it. I'm the guy. Me. I am the entire market for the Britney Spears news. I love her. The media is just trying to cater to their market, which is me and me alone. I know that nobody else in the world loves Britney but me, and I can't help it. It's not my fault that NBC is just trying to keep me and only me happy. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I'm important, you're not, and I want Britney 24x7.

      Signed, the Solipsist.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )
      I would say that this is one of the main issues with the current news publications in any form. It's the celebrity pop-esque running updates that go on for 15 hours in a row with regards to their runny nose. I'm sorry news broadcasters and publications, but there is real news that we as a general population want to see. If they can't provide it we'll goto other mediums and through other people to get it.

      Of course as you pointed out as well, there's no shortage of publications and not to mention shows ded

  • The obvious down side (Score:5, Insightful)

    by faloi ( 738831 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:22PM (#22895540)
    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.
    • it would find me.

      Wait, what?

    • Re:The obvious down side (Score:5, Insightful)

      by db32 ( 862117 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:32PM (#22895746) Journal
      I think this is actually false, but it would be interesting to see some real statistics on it. Think about what you send to who. There are plently of little sheeple types that all think and behave the same, but are these the types that typically keep up on current events beyond crap like Britney Watch? I mean really most of my friends have a WIDE range of opinions on a WIDE range of topics and we constantly send eachother point/counterpoint stories, not just stories that will provide mental masturbation as we all nod and agree.

      I'm telling you, even amongst the most herd mentalities of political parties and religious groups, get them into smaller groups and make them actually describe what they believe and why and you will likely start a brawl amongst them (they don't tend to deal with differing opinions well). They all think they think alike, and the illusion is blissfully maintained so long as they don't have to think for themselves or form their own opinions, but make them talk about that stuff, think about that stuff, without giving them the opportunity to express herd mentality for eachother and you will frequently see divergent points.

      • Re:The obvious down side (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:23PM (#22896426) Journal
        I mean really most of my friends have a WIDE range of opinions on a WIDE range of topics and we constantly send eachother point/counterpoint stories, not just stories that will provide mental masturbation as we all nod and agree.

        That just proves the point. You're hanging out with a group of like minded people who have diverse interests so you don't notice the fact that most people really don't.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Idiomatick ( 976696 )
          Glad you noticed the flaw in his thinking. The media is NOT playing to the lowest common denominator, its playing to the average. Here at /. we find it hard to admit to ourselves that the average person sucks THAT much. In the UK the top shows are soaps, in the US its football followed by soaps and reality TV (American Idol the biggest show since '04). People just DO NOT CARE about important things in the world. As much as i hate the mass media... and i really hate the mass media. On occasion some news has
          • In all fairness people *do* need to relax occasionally. If we all paid close attention to every last war torn shit-hole, every political scandal, every significant event everywhere all the time we'd never have time to live our lives. There is simply too much information to take in all at once and a lot of it doesn't affect us directly or even remotely.
            • I totally agree, i just think the scale is on the wrong side of where it should be atm. When less than 1/3 of the population participated in the 2004 election (an important race) vs 44% of the population that watched the superbowl... That shows fairly accurately where peoples priorities are. I'm not saying people should all know about the latest coup in africa. I'm saying they should be able to name both contenders in elections at least 2 pieces of policy and 1 foreign leader. A significant % of the populat

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Snowmit ( 704081 )
            Here at /. we find it hard to admit to ourselves that the average person sucks THAT much.

            I don't know which slashdot you've been reading but the one I've been reading is full of people who can't stop falling over themselves to make jokes about how all the people here are supergeniuses readers who could never fit in socially with the mainstream dumb jocks and whatnot.

            It's a false dichotomy. The fact that I'm up on Paris Hilton's latest fashion doesn't prevent me from also having a subscription to the Economi

            • And your game of telephone analogy doesn't work. The brilliant thing about the Internet is that when I pass on a story to a friend I literally pass a pointer to that story. Everyone along the chain gets a link back to the same content, there is no degradation of signal.

              I beg to differ. There's this phenomenon called blogging, which is nothing else but editorializing. We see it here at /. all the time, guy1 finds some news in site A and blogs about it on B. Guy2 blogs about B on his own blog, C. Guy3 submit

    • Yea. Group think is going to be a huge problem. As if it weren't already a big enough problem as it is.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yea. Group think is going to be a huge problem. As if it weren't already a big enough problem as it is.
        Yeah, I agree with you. Huge problem. Although most people hear already realize that. That's what I like about Slashdot--it's a place I can come to filter out all the people who just don't understand how dangerous groupthink is.

    • Re:The obvious down side (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:38PM (#22895824) Journal
      ferchrisakes! That's why they invented happy hour... oh wait, you don't have happy hour in your mom's basement?

      Secondly, just how is that different than any other time in history? If I ask you to tell me the initials of the person you know that believe everything they read or hear, I'm willing to bet that 99% of those that read this post will be able to. That person will tell their friends whatever they hear about as if it were written below the 10th commandment when moses came down off the mount. And so the wrong news spreads. Despite, or because of it, a couple of months ago my (not near me) family had not heard of Obama or Paul. If the MSM actually does start picking up on what is spreading via the intarwebtubes, perhaps people will get to hear more varied information? They thought the race was going to be between huckabee and *HER*.

      The simple truth is that there is NO reliable steady source of information when it comes to news. Informed people will always seek multiple sources of stories and read multiple sources for variance. (still waiting for a lolcat to attack Colbert live on tv).

      Ever hear your grandma tell you not to believe everything you hear or read? There is a reason for that. No matter what you use for news source, it cannot be the A-Z of news. period. ever. I mean it. Whether you get it from TV or the Internet or the radio or your friends and family.

      Personally, the Internet makes me happy. I can get BBC and other European news sources too, not just the Whitehouse propaganda that much of the US seems to thrive on.

      • Re:The obvious down side (Score:4, Informative)

        by indiejade ( 850391 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:10PM (#22896246)

        Ever hear your grandma tell you not to believe everything you hear or read?
        Actually, I have to remind my grandma to not believe everything she hears and sees on Fox News.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Archangel Michael ( 180766 )
          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 intellectu
    • Who are you? I don't know you! I don't think I will listen to your opinion unless I get an email about your opinion first.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by noidentity ( 188756 )

      As the trend continues, people are going to be even less likely to hear opposing points of view.

      That's why I get my news only from objective sources like Fox News.

    • Re:The obvious down side (Score:4, Interesting)

      by FredFredrickson ( 1177871 ) * on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:03PM (#22896162) Homepage Journal

      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...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by letxa2000 ( 215841 )

      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.

      Yep, it's going to lead to further political polarization in the U.S. You're going to tend to only see/read news that positively reinforces the beliefs you already have or confirms your negative views of the opposing position. You're not going

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bkr1_2k ( 237627 )
        See, you almost made it. You were doing really well, right up until the end there, where you showed your own bias. There are "liberal 'professionals'" just as there are "conservative professionals" and choosing to point at either side as the problem while not pointing at the other side, is where the real problem comes into play. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out why.

    • Compared to the Old Media (tm)? No WAY! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:46PM (#22896706) Journal
      As the trend continues, people are going to be even less likely to hear opposing points of view.

      As compared to the Old Media? ROTFL!

      The former mainstream media systematically suppress the news they don't want you to hear or they don't want to cover. (They were PARTICULARLY blatant during the presidential primary season, where they systematically avoided covering certain candidates: Ron Paul, Alan Keys, and Dennis Kucinich to name just three where they were particularly blatant.) If you compare the coverage on the Internet and that on the Old Media you'd think they were operating in two different universes.

      In particular: Ron Paul was VERY popular with the people who actually found out about him. His single-digit showing in most of the primaries, despite his all-time-record fundraising (virtually all from individuals contributing an average of about $100) is a measure of how small a fraction of the population is currently getting a significant portion of their news from the Internet.

      On the internet your social contacts might bring something to your attention and/or help you filter it. But if your circle of friends is missing some point of view, the first time you do a search on it you'll find plenty of opposing voices - and other circles of potential friends if you happen to change your mind about the issue.

      This will continue unless/until the operators of all the major search engines become as politically corrupted as the operators of the Old Media, figure out how to work their bias into their search engine results, yet still manage to avoid being replaced by more open competitors. (Or some world-wide Stalinist-style regime manages to censor the whole internet.)

      So, no. For the forseable future switching to internet news and social sites from Old/Mainstream Media will increase, not decrease, exposure to opposing points of view.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jafac ( 1449 )
        The very interesting thing about Ron Paul is that he became quickly very UNPOPULAR among people who found out on their own about him. The truth about his past, his little radical newspaper, and the racist opinions he used to push.

        Yeah - the real truth.

        Ron Paul was just another phony politician, who's 15 minutes got stretched out a little too long.

    • 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 absolutely agree. Ignore others on this thread that say "oh, i have tons of friends with different viewpoints"...Those guys haven't been to my small town in Indiana. Unadventurous, closed minded people work just as you describe with news. They filter it when they talk to each other about it. Since they do not question things or seek

    • As the trend continues, people are going to be even less likely to hear opposing points of view.
      And then how are we going to get them off our lawns?
  • I get a large portion of my news from slashdot. I find that maybe 20%, sometimes more, of the stories here are of above average interest to me. That's far better than scanning news sites, which anyway wouldn't find half the stories here. So I'm letting all of you function as my filter. Works well enough for the type of news slashdot specializes in. You know, for nerds.

    For everything else, there's The Daily Show.

  • Maybe true, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bombula ( 670389 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:22PM (#22895554)
    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.

  • and the latest Missing White Woman.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Khaed ( 544779 )
      I dunno if that's fair. She spent the entire duration of the Duke case basically calling for the players to be sentenced without a trial. (And then the night the charges were dropped she didn't even appear on her own show!) It's more like "Nancy Grace and the latest thing for her to act like a crazy bitch about."

  • Good and Bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whisper_jeff ( 680366 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:26PM (#22895630)
    While this may be good, in that only news that interest people will spread leaving the boring stuff behind, it is bad for the obvious reason that Joe Geek may be poorly informed about a subject while finding it interesting. They may get excited about a given topic and forward it to all their friends and family, thereby spreading the news in a wonderfully viral way, but the "news" may be utterly uninformed and outright incorrect. Obviously, this effect is already taking place (how many of us have had non-tech-savvy parents send us emails about "forward this to ten people you know and Bill Gates will give you $1000"). Just because someone finds something interesting and "newsworthy" doesn't mean it's remotely accurate. Information now spreads faster than ever but so does misinformation...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      the "news" may be utterly uninformed and outright incorrect.

      Which is different from the mainstream media how, exactly?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by oberondarksoul ( 723118 )
        If a friend tells you libellous comments face-to-face, the chances of him being sued successfully for it is virtually nil. Publish it in a newspaper, television programme, or on the web, and that probability shoots upwards. Traditional journalism must meet some standards of accountability, whereas you and your mates down the pub don't.
        • Traditional journalism must meet some standards of accountability, whereas you and your mates down the pub don't.

          All they have to do is quote libelous statements from their sources rather than say them directly. Same effect, zero accountability. How else were they able to legally lie about Iraq's (non)connection with Al-Qaeda?
    • how many of us have had non-tech-savvy parents send us emails about "forward this to ten people you know and Bill Gates will give you $1000"

      I'm not disagreeing with you here (I work in a school district, so I deal with a lot of parents), but I'm curious why you picked this subset of people.

  • Instead of linking to Techdirt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ral315 ( 741081 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:28PM (#22895660)
    Instead of linking to Techdirt, could the editors please consider linking to the actual article [nytimes.com]?

  • Mainstream Media Finally Catching On To How News Propagates

    Fox News, however, is still totally clueless.
  • Every day I take the content from slashdot and talk about it with people I know.

    And I auto filter it. I take the stories that I think they want to hear to them. Or stuff that I think they can contribute more information on. Its just a natural part how we do things.

    I think the new generation is just more instant about it.

  • Only for mainstream news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by El Pollo Loco ( 562236 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:29PM (#22895678)
    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.

    Naturally there will be certain circles where some types of news is more popular. But what hurts is that it reinforces the popular == good methodology. And that's what hurts me about people these days. They don't seem to be interested if they don't see one of two things. An immediate effect on them, or most of their friends being interested in it.

    This is why I started the website in my sig. It's hard to find people who don't just read popular news, and like to think and discuss it.

    The article is right in that news does propagate that way. But until we're at a point where we're propagating useful, knowledgeable news, we will still be doing a disservice to people.

    How many of us get links to the economist in our email? It's certainly not popular on the social news sites. The potential is there with social news. We just need to get a larger mass of people disseminating useful news. Then we won't have to worry about things like "Mainstream media", as only the knowledgeable news will be propagated.

    • Hardly (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:55PM (#22896842) Journal
      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.

  • Please try to keep up. (Score:4, Informative)

    by griffjon ( 14945 ) <`GriffJon' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:30PM (#22895712) Homepage Journal
    "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?

  • News? Hardy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by st0rmshad0w ( 412661 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:33PM (#22895750)
    I wouldn't call this news, a more accurate term would be gossip.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by techpawn ( 969834 )

      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
      • Well after our talking head trusted sources started getting caught fabricating news stories out of thin air....
        • That's more a problem with passing along bad information
          My point was that the act of relaying data from Mr. X to Mrs. Y via Mrs. V because Y and V are friends and Y trusts that X is not giving false information has been going on in sales for as long as I can remember.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      I wouldn't call this news, a more accurate term would be gossip.

      And that's different from the mainstream media [google.com] how, exactly? I mean, the Google News page I linked has 111 different mainstream media articles about it. How is a shooting in Virginia in any way relevant to me, who lives in Illinois? It's gossip!

  • Less trust for mainstream media sources (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:34PM (#22895770)
    My ex-stepdad always went on about how the New York Times was "the paper of record" and how there was all sorts of journalistic integrity. He used this argument to dismiss any news items I brought up that seemed too fringe or kooky.

    Anyone who has been paying attention these days realizes that the mainstream media is pretty much bought and paid for propaganda. Good propaganda contains a high percentage of truth, that makes it harder to detect the spin. There are so many cases on record where there has either been a concerted and deliberate effort to twist the news for political and financial gain or there has simply been gross incompetence where journalistic safeguards failed to operate in the intended fashion.

    "Americans are the only people in the world who believe their own government's propaganda." Well, probably not the only people in the world but certainly among the most notoriously credulous.

    Our biggest problem with the media is consolidation, the major outlets are now owned by gigantic corporations who have a vested interest in "creating their own weather" by steering news coverage. With smaller news organizations, the primary goal is still making money but they make the bucks by finding and publishing the dirt rather than by suppressing the facts to keep the corporate masters happy. Media that rely on ad revenue are just as untrustworthy, just look at the game reviews. "Festering Piece of Crap 4, at least a 7/10!"

    I think generational attitudes are changing. People in my parents' generation have become disillusioned with the news and people my generation and younger never had any faith to begin with.
    • "Our biggest problem with the media is consolidation"

      That is not a problem, because the Net has already routed around that problem.

      The current consolidation of news is ONLY limited to traditional mass media (Paper, broadcast), which is centralized by its own infrastructure anyways; Printing press, Antennas etc.

      What you fail to realize or state in your premise, is that these media sources are also collapsing under their own weight, and centralization is a huge contributer of that collapse.

      Your viewpoint is a

      • What you fail to realize or state in your premise, is that these media sources are also collapsing under their own weight, and centralization is a huge contributer of that collapse.

        Your viewpoint is almost as archaic as traditional media is. The fact is, everyone is a reporter now, and everyone is a consumer of news. YouTube is the new boiler room of the news organization.

        How many people are out there doing original reporting versus quoting mainstream articles and providing meta-commentary? The closest thing Slashdot comes to original journalism are the "ask slashdot" and "ask so and so" interviews. Slashdot is a news aggregator. This is not a criticism but a statement of fact. Without the larger media outlets generating the news content in the first place, Slashdot would be starved for content.

        The problem with original reporting, it's bloody expensive. True investigative j

        • Slashdot is a news aggregator true enough. However slashdot, like many blogs, provides a varied set of viewpoints on most subjects(with notable exceptions), and the commentary that follows is almost more informative than the original article or post. Many times experts, not available in the article themselves are here and speak to why something is (or is not) correct, and explain why. Which makes it infinitely more valuable that any of the filtered crap that passes for "news" elsewhere.

          There are plenty of f
  • they're too lazy or apathetic to find things of interest because they're so busy telling the world about their latest drunken party and posting pics of two women and one cup. Then again, when you have this master of intellect [youtube.com], should it surprise anyone?*

    Yeah, that pretty much sums up the self-centered nature of the 'younger' crowd** nowadays. Someone give it to me. I'm too important to do it myself.

    *Google for 'smarter than a fifth grader blonde idiot' and she is the first item
    **How I hate to s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stokessd ( 89903 )

      ...posting pics of two women and one cup
      Really, I haven't seen this. What do these two women do? The only thing remotely close is a movie about these two Chicks and one cup. You'd think somebody whould chip in for a second cup...

      Sheldon

  • BAD NEWS (Score:3, Informative)

    by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:40PM (#22895858) Journal
    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 [sj-r.com] (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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 )

      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.

      Hardly a Libertarian premise. Let the market decide. If people had wanted to hear about a Libertarian candidate, a Libertarian would have made his own newspaper, and it would have been widely s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 )
        If they're kooks then I certainly want to hear their views! Because right now I'm unbdecided whether to vote Green or Libertarian come the election this year. I'm certainly not going to vote Republican or Democrat, as both parties want me in jail.
  • Even if they "get it", nothing changes. What exactly are they going to do with this new found knowledge? The central point of entry into the social arena is still the front page of the mainstream media. Someone has to read it in the first place once to pass it on to their friends.

    Unless of course they decide to throw up a couple of AIM bots to link me to random news articles and then that will be the beginning of the end. :(

    (In all seriousness though there's still the block button)

  • reliability problem, a la Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smellsofbikes ( 890263 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @12:56PM (#22896084) Journal
    As others have pointed out, one problem with this is that you only hear what your friends are hearing, so it's easy to become/remain isolated, leading to greater polarization.
    In this week's New Yorker magazine, they talk extensively about the transition from newspapers to online news sources, particularly concentrating on Arianna Huffington and Little Green Footballs. With respect to polarization, the article points out that in countries where this is (arguably) already going on to a greater extent than the US, there is significantly greater engagement in politics, though whether that's because of or just correlated with polarization issues, isn't clear.
    But the main thrust of the NY article is research. Traditional news companies, particularly newspapers, spend a *lot* of money on reporters, who are expected to research their stories. Obviously that doesn't always happen, as a number of large scandals of late have made clear, but on the other hand, there is no attempt whatsoever by most email-forwarding people to verify what they're forwarding, which leads to misinformed polarization, a worse problem yet.
    The flip side of that is that a reporter is unlikely to run across the one disgruntled employee who is willing to spill the beans, while a much more broadly based concept of news reporting, where many eyes and fingers contribute to the work, is more likely to get information from inside sources... but there's still that problem with trusting them to be right. Already we see adblogs. Many people on /. have speculated that Microsoft employs people to work on moderating stories on /. in Microsoft's favor, and it's well-known that Scientology does related stuff with internet newsgroups. It's hard to trust a big anonymous system when motivated, biased people can astroturf it.
    But, as the New Yorker article made clear, this is largely eulogy: newspapers are dying, and it's not going to take very long. (People in the article said 2040 or thereabouts, extrapolating from what we see now.) The question is whether political blogs and the like will take their place or whether something somewhere in between will show up. Huffington has hired actual reporters from newspapers to do some work. Wouldn't it be nice if some other user-content websites we all know about did the same?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bkr1_2k ( 237627 )
      Research is exactly why I respond to all when people forward me misinformation. There was some poorly researched thing going around about how "dangerous" Washington DC is compared to the war in Iraq incorrectly comparing annual statistics with monthly statistics and the like. The person who forwarded it supports the war, and I do not. I responded to everyone he sent it to, debunking every statistic I could in the article with accurate statistics and reasons why everyone else should do their own research.
    • As others have pointed out, one problem with this is that you only hear what your friends are hearing, so it's easy to become/remain isolated, leading to greater polarization.

      And the first time you do a web search on any subject that came up with your friends you see multiple points of view. Follow them up and you'll see arguments. On some of them they'll convince you. Then you'll convince your friends - or switch circles of friends.

      Meanwhile the Old Media (formerly the Mainstream Media) is strongly pola
      • Maybe you have a wildly different group of friends than I -- or anyone else I know -- because what I see is groups of people who are all seeing lots of information, selecting the information they *like*, and sending it to their group of friends, who are doing exactly the same thing right back. That's a positive feedback loop. Around here it's called the slashdot hive mind or groupthink.
        There are some people who behave like you do, but in my observation, they are unusual.

        Mainstream media, by being beholden

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by daigu ( 111684 )
      Look [latimes.com], yet another example of the kinds of stories that have been coming out for a few decades about the ever shrinking news room. Investigative journalism costs a lot of money, and it takes professionals doing a lot of work. If a corporation can get by on entertainment news, they will. See the prevalence of reality TV shows or game shows, these are dirt cheap to produce. And if you think citizen journalists are going to fill in the gap, I have news for you - you have a better chance of seeing citizen noveli
  • Today's Internet-consuming folks are perfectly happy to assign mainstream media to the trash with the accusations of being owned by the government and large multinational corporations with nobody's interests in mind except their own. OK, but then why are they flocking to mysapce, digg and reddit for their "news"?

    Yes, the mainstream media is patheticly poor at delivering real meaning and is often sidetracked into entertaining news about entertainers rather than news. But the substitute today is for people

    • OK, but then why are they flocking to mysapce, digg and reddit for their "news"?
      Because, poor as they are, these outlets are still superior to mainstream ones.

  • How News Propigates to Me (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alzheimers ( 467217 ) on Friday March 28, 2008 @01:11PM (#22896252)
    Event -> Mainstream Media --> Daily Show ---> Me

    Jon Stewart is my Walter Cronkite
  • An article along the same lines by The Economist [economist.com].
    Discusses article ordering types for Digg.com
  • . . . The Onion [theonion.com], who seem to be the only ones reporting on news that's important to me.
  • I keep finding out famous people died or tragic events happen through b3ta [b3ta.com] because suddenly everyone's photoshopping pics of the people/event, then I pop over to news.bbc.co.uk to find out what really happened.

  • According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well
    I'm glad we finally determined who invented 'word of mouth.' Wow. No generation before every did anything like that. Email and video links sent through online social networks make it easier and faster to propagate noise, but the amount of raw signal out there is about the same as it always was.
  • I start my day with Google News, then check my email for more news from a guy who sends me stuff regularly. I also send him and others news articles daily. I also send articles on foreign policy topics to guys like Matt Yglesias and Josh Marshall at TPM.

    I read things he doesn't read and he reads stuff I don't read. Net win. Most of the stuff he sends I'm not that interested in, based on the sources, but I get enough useful stuff that I wouldn't turn off the flow.

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