The benefit to having online news is that it can be updated immediately, so the news is always up to date, whereas for example, newspapers are only updated with new news daily. As well as this, specific news concerning something you may have a personal interest in, can be easily accessed. Online news is meant to be informative to people all over the world, but are news stories that are covered in England relevant to somebody in, for example, China? To some extent yes, they are, but often they are not. There is also the question of who is writing the stories. A British writer may have a completely different opinion or outlook about something than for example, a French journalist. This goes against Meikle's ideas about news reports needing to be unconstrained by geography.
Because of news being accessible on the internet, and anyone being able to publish things on the internet, it reverses the previous power structure of news. The passive audience can now contribute to the news itself, and involve themselves in producing news articles. Ordinary people with no journalism experience can now publish articles and write their own opinions about the news . But will this ever catch on? Personally, if I want to access the news online, I will visit site such as BBC or MSN to ensure that I read reports by credible journalists, so does the online news community really change what we read?
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I do the same Lucy, if its on the BBC news online i will trust the information. However, i think i would be a bit wary about other sites. I hadn't really thought of the fact that news online is delivered much quicker and is up to date. I don't know how much of a bonus this is though, especially like you said for TV you can have 'regional' news etc and online you can't. Do you think that the fact that anyone can write on these websites makes them lose authority and trust? There is Turkle’s idea of freedom on the net contradicting the moderation of the news sites which Meikle mentioned. What do you think is more important 'freedom of speech' or the moderation to ensure the most 'important' headlines make it to the first page online.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the history and recongition sites like BBC have I think they will have authority over other sites like Indymedia for a long time. The audience want a quick way to search for the news, so they will just go to BBC online to catch up on headlines, before then watching it on the television. I think Indymedia has along way to go before it gets to the position that the BBC is in. I think that Turkle's idea of freedom on the net, contradicts Meikle's writing. Yes people have the freedom to become a journalist and a produser, but there's only so many sites that can have authority and to gain the viewers trust. If the whole country was writing stories then nobody would know what site to look on, and they will always go back to the one they feel the can trust eg the BBC!
ReplyDeleteConsidering your question Kerry, I think that freedom of speech is of course important, and as a democratic country we are lucky to have this, however, we can not forget that society generally follows commercialism and will 9 times out of 10 go to sites which are recognised,such as BBC.
ReplyDeleteFor most, reading a paper or finding news online is a quick way to keep up-to-date with what is going on in the world, many people will not be bothered with news stories which, to them, are not important.
In agreement with all three of you, Turkle's idea is a positive one, but realistically how can a person have that freedom if no-one reads it? Like claire says, we naturally learn towards what we trust.
i think that we trust the BBC more because of a) how long it has been around for and b) because we know that they will employ the best people they think will do the job. this is why i think we trust sites like that.
ReplyDeleteor i trust them for that anyway - they have so much more to lose than opne publishers.
ReplyDeleteI think yes, Turkle and Meikle contradict eachother in terms of freedom of speech and what the public actually read.
ReplyDeleteAfter thinking about Kerry's question, I am not certain which I consider to be more important, freedom of speech or 'important' headlines. Without freedom of speech we could experience propaganda, or even totalitarianism. However, if we just let people write what they wanted when they wanted, this could result in controversy. I think it is an interesting and important point to consider when looking at these theorists.
As ever a lively debate here! Some questions: does the BBC report ALL news? What do the indy sites offer that the Beeb doesn't? Why is it important that French journos write about the UK and vice versa - and we get to read it? What's wrong with instant news?
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