Today, we can get news feeds which gives us articles from the Internet that may be of interest to us. For example, unlike tradition newspapers which have gone online, Google News can show us a wide selection of news articles that is not limited to a certain outlet. Which sounds really great, until you think about it a bit deeper.
First, Google News is a free service. But it is not actually free, since it is actually sustained by ads. Ads from the articles that you visit. Which also means that, most likely, it is showing you articles that have ads. Not really a problem, except this means that articles without ads may somehow get "censored" from your feeds. So you are not going to see those great academic articles on university sites unless you scroll down all the way to the end of the feed (if it shows up at all).
Another thing about such news feeds is that they want you to read the articles, because it generates ad revenue. So they will select articles that you are likely to read. This means that while, technically, the news feed can gather articles widely from many many sources, you are only going to see a limited range of articles on your news feed, based on what you have clicked on before. Instead of widening our perspective with the vast amount of information available on the Internet, we may end up limiting the information we receive into a very narrow perspective.
Compare this with traditional news media, which seeks to provide a wide range of news. We can skim through the newspapers looking at the article titles and only read what interest us. Maybe we only read five articles out of the 200 found in the newspaper. But at least we will be given the headlines. We may actually discover something interesting outside what we usually read. Because it is there. Unlike a news feed, which may contain 2,000 articles, but all of them based on what we have read before.
This is why I continue to visit Japan Today. It has news related mainly to Japan and a mix of world news. I used to read it because my mentor was active in posting comments on articles, but I find the selection of articles quite fitting for my needs. Sometimes, I discover articles outside what I usually read.
And that is also why I turn on the news at night. I may not be paying attention to it, but once in a while, a piece of news may pop up that is interesting to me, and I stop what I am doing to watch it.
There is something to note for traditional news media about the way they select articles, but that is a topic for another day. Until then, happy reading/watching/listening to the news! 😉
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