[student name deleted]
CSC442B Fall 2008
The Internet and American Life
Paper One
News at the Speed of the Internet
According to legend, news of the defeat of the Persian forces by the Athenians in 490 B.C. at
the Battle of Marathon took several hours to reach Athens. The messenger carrying this news ran 25
miles and then promptly died upon giving his important news.(1) In contrast, American Airlines Flight
77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37:46 AM ET during the terrorist attacks upon the United States on
September 11, 2001 (2). CNN had a live report from the scene at 9:42 AM ET (3), a mere 5 minutes
after the event. Before the Internet, news was a one-way medium with limited formats and sources.
After slightly more than 15 years after the popular advent of the Internet, news is now bi-directional,
multi-modal and comes from a variety of sources. This change in the fundamentals of news reporting
has significantly impacted my life by satisfying my personal need for frequent and varied information
about local and world events. I will explain how the Internet has allowed me to fundamentally change
the way in which I consume news. From a young age, I was always voracious consumer of news from
many mediums including television, radio, newspapers and magazines. In addition, I am an early
Internet technology adopter and I publish my own blog. I will explain the sources of information from
which I receive information, the tools that I use to receive it, the frequency with which I do so and my
ability to publicly comment upon and analyze this news.
The volume and diversity of news sources on the Internet has permitted me to keep up-to-date
on almost any area or aspect of the world that I wish. In general, I have always kept informed on
events happening in multiple realms ranging from local/regional events to sports to international news.
Before the rise of the Internet, I received local news once a day from the regional newspaper and in the
evening from the nightly news. These forms of news consumption do have a visceral appeal – a sort of
comforting washing over of information. From Victoria Riggen’s post to the CSC442 Paper One
discussion forum, many people including her are content to consume news on television only and
would miss it if it were gone (4). Victoria references a Pew Research Center for People and the Press
report stating that “Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) say they would miss these broadcasts a lot if they were
no longer available." (5) On the other hand, I have gladly abandoned almost all television-based news.
Based upon this report, I would be considered a “Net-Newser” in the vernacular of the report. This is
evidenced by my particular appetite for national and political news, political blogs and the fact that I
read more news as the day continues. For local news, I access the Orlando Sentinel newspaper website
and WFTV website, one of the local television stations in Central Florida. At an even more local level,
our community of East Orlando has a local interest newspaper titled the East Orlando Sun. This
weekly online newspaper is a valuable resource for me to find out about my community. In fact, I
place equal or more trust in local online sources than printed one and my viewpoint seems to be a trend
on the Internet as a whole. According to a Pew Research Center for People and the Press from 2007,
32% of primarily Internet news consumers have an unfavorable opinion of local TV news as compared
to only 22% for primarily newspaper and 16% for primarily TV users.(6)
Another change in the sources of my news consumption is the ability to access sources that I
previously would not have been able to access. Two such sources are the Wall Street Journal and the
Daily Mail in the UK. The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page publishes a daily blog called “The Best
of the Web” written by James Taranto. I became a regular reader of this blog during the 2004 elections
and have read it almost daily since then. This column and the paper as a whole is very important to my
ability to stay informed, but I would likely not subscribe to the physical paper at $99 per year fee.
I have always been fascinated with news and pop culture from the UK. Evidently, I am not the
only one. According to the TimesOnline website, the “two largest “quality” newspaper websites in
terms of users, have more American than British readers.” (7) Of these British newspapers, my
favorite is the Daily Mail, which was first published in 1896 and is now the second-largest UK
newspaper in terms of circulation. (8) On a given day, articles on the Daily Mail will range from
serious subjects such as “Nationalised Northern Rock twice as likely to repossess homes as other
lenders” (9) to the sensational “Trim-again Angelina Jolie tells U.S. TV viewers that she is already
planning baby No.7”. (10) This newspaper has given me a frequent insight into a society with which I
am somewhat obsessed and would know much less about otherwise. Truthfully, this observation
applies to most of my regular news sources. They allow me to stay informed in ways that would not
be possible without them.
The varied sources of news on the Internet are not the only way in which my consumption has
changed. Beyond moving from the printed newspaper and television to the computer, I take in news in
a variety of digital modalities. The most obvious mode is the traditional website to which I visit when
I have the desire to get informed at that moment. This was my primary means of news consumption
for the first ten years or so of the Internet. In recent years, I have moved beyond this mode and now
receive news and information via online videos, email news subscriptions and RSS feeds. My varied
news consumption habits are not unique. According to the article “Consuming Online News:
Purposive News Seeking Mode and Types of Users”, understanding behavior like mine is challenging
because “scholars have not articulated any useful theoretical framework for understanding the news
seeking behavior of online audience”. (11) I receive emails from three news sources on a daily basis,
including the Best of the Web blog that I previously mentioned. In addition, I subscribe to the
Strategic Forecasting Geopolitical Diary and the PatriotPost blog. Neither of these sources was being
published before the advent of the Internet and would surely not be freely and frequently published on
paper.
RSS feeds have made the largest impact upon my news consumption habits. RSS is an
acronym that has been assigned several meanings including “Really Simple Syndication” and “Rich
Site Summary” (12), neither of which is in popular usage currently. At its most simple, RSS is a
mechanism for pushing news information using XML. I currently subscribe to 44 RSS news feeds
ranging from Galactica Sitrep (13), a feed about the show Battlestar Galactica, to Fox News (14) and
even the feed for our CSC442B class. (15) I view these feeds using the Google Reader web-based
RSS feed aggregator. Google Reader has allowed me to scan, bookmark and share the news that read
in a very easy manner. On many days, I will never visit a news website and will just read scan my
RSS feed updates. This has allowed me to focus my time upon the news that I care most about.
An interesting twist on my news access is physical location. I do not have an Internet-capable
mobile phone; however, I have used our Nintendo Wii to view news sites from the comfort of my
couch. The Wii has a downloadable Opera web browser that works very well. The ability to view
websites and read news from the comfort of my couch had an unexpected effect upon me. I took my
time and read what was presented in more detail. Apparently, I am not the only one who has made this
observation. In the article “News on the Wii? Sure, why not”, Caroline McCarthy noted this feature.
(16)
I never directly commented upon the news before doing so on the Internet. Many websites
provide an analog to the old “letters to the editor” column from newspapers. In her post on the
CSC442B Paper One forum, Christine Korkowski noted that her father submits his comments in this
way. (17) Using the Internet, I now have the ability to share my opinions, and in a much more
powerful way than a simple letter to the editor. Before this capability, I was compelled to share my
discoveries with primarily uninterested individuals such as my wife or co-workers.
From the previously mentioned Google Reader RSS feed aggregator, I can share news feed
items and even my comments about the article through my shared items page. (18) This has become
an important outlet for my desire to share the information that I read. In addition to sharing items
using Google Reader, I also comment directly upon articles on news websites. I have a particular
disdain for CNN and what I view as biased reporting. I have commented upon several articles on CNN
to not only express my opinion to other readers, but also to CNN themselves when I view that they
violated their journalistic responsibilities. I also read comments written by other readers as a
validation, or non-validation, of my opinions about the article. After reading these comments, I
sometimes feel validated that I agreed or disagreed with the article or the opinion of the author. I view
this give-and-take commenting as a loose form of social interaction. In his posting on the CSC442B
Paper One forum, Henry Kim asked if I “socialize and interact with other Internet users” (19) to which
I answered in the negative. After considering his question; however, I have come to the conclusion
that this indeed is an indirect form of interaction.
By far, the most significant manner in which I share my comments and analysis of the news is
through my blog The New Patriot Generation. This site started as a basic blog hosted on the Google
Blogger service. I would typically share all kinds of links and information ranging from television
shows to sports and politics, of course. I soon registered my domain name newpatriotgeneration.com
and linked my blog to it. Along with registering the domain name, I also considered a new purpose for
the site. I chose to use my Facebook (20) page to share personal information with family and friends
and use my new blog to publish my opinion on world events. I started by simply creating a link to
articles on topics like Olympian Kerri Walsh thanking President Bush. (21) I soon progressed to
excerpting the article which I was analyzing and providing my own commentary on topics such as the
current economic crisis. (22) I have spent varied amounts of time publishing to my blog. Simply
posting links is very simple and quick, but no not very rewarding. Creating unique and thoughtful
commentary is very self-fulfilling, but also time-consuming given my other personal commitments.
In addition to commenting and analyzing the news that I read, I also like to know that other
people appreciate what I have published or analyzed. Even with the Internet, this could be difficult
using traditional website commentary mechanisms. In many cases, it would simply start a flame war.
Via my blog and Google Analytics, I am now able to see how many Internet users are reading my blog
postings. For example, the following information is available to me about my blog page views:
Pages
/2008/08/toy-story-mania-tips-and-tricks.html
/
/2008/06/daily-flex-june-20-2008.html
/2008/09/harvard-economist-slams-700b-bailout.html
/2008/06/daily-flex-june-19-2008.html
Pageviews
13
10
5
3
2
% Pageviews
30.95%
23.81%
11.90%
7.14%
4.76%
I personally value this information because it makes me feel that my contribution to the Internet
information fabric is useful and interesting to others. It has helped make me a citizen of the world
through the Internet.
Thao Le, in her posting on the CSC442B Paper One discussion forum, asked why I like reading
and sharing the news that I read. (23) Her question strikes at the heart of why these new Internet
capabilities are important to me. My job certainly does not require it and I don’t belong to any action
groups in which news consumption and commentary would be an expectation. In her posting, Thao
asked about “the advantage of being updated on the news on a daily or even hourly basis?” I believe
that the answer can be more eloquently given by the quoting the philosopher Socrates. He stated that
“the unexamined life is not worth living.” (24) By consuming, analyzing and publishing news about
this world, I genuinely feel that I am analyzing myself and my place in this world. Life is short, as I
have become painfully aware now that I approach my 40th birthday. I want my life to be worth living.
References
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<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/363914/Battle-of-Marathon>.
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One Assignment. 14 OCT 2008. 15 Oct 2008
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