There's a thin line between love and hate, as the saying goes, but that thin line -- the one that is often crossed -- goes for a lot of other topics, too.
Take for instance the difference between being satiated by food or stuffing yourself silly. All it takes is that extra bbq wing or cocktail to push you from happy to overstuffed.. and it didn't take much, did it?
Our digital world is much like that today. We hear about the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview and "Google it", land at the LA Times "Dish Rag," which links to Sarah Palin stories in the LA Times, which links to Daily Kos, which links to a YouTube video of Sarah Palin in church with her crazy pastor.
Wait. What was I doing again?
Take for instance the difference between being satiated by food or stuffing yourself silly. All it takes is that extra bbq wing or cocktail to push you from happy to overstuffed.. and it didn't take much, did it?
Our digital world is much like that today. We hear about the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview and "Google it", land at the LA Times "Dish Rag," which links to Sarah Palin stories in the LA Times, which links to Daily Kos, which links to a YouTube video of Sarah Palin in church with her crazy pastor.
Wait. What was I doing again?
In this digital culture of instant information (or, at least, instant Wikipedia-ization), we are being bombarded with new technological ways to take news and information to a global level.
Two sites that I've been taking a look at are Spinspotter and NewsTrust. Both aim to take news stories down to their essentials but try to achieve this in provocative ways. Spinspotter has an interactive red pen, in which readers are asked to mark news stories in order to "[expose] news spin and bias, misuse of sources, and suspect factual support." NewsTrust goes another route by asking readers to review news stories through comments and starred ratings on categories from accuracy to trust. Is this really informing how we live, or are these adding more to the noise?
While the concept of Spinspotter is innovative, I wonder who is truly using it and for what reasons. As readers, Spinspotter asks us to recognize the spin and mark up news stories to "bring transparency to journalism." I wonder how well that'll work. Right off the bat, readers are asked to identify spin according to the Seven Deadly Spins, created through Spinspotter's Journalism Advisory Board and the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. In my opinion, this would require the tenacity of the fellow in the comic XKCD (pictured at left). While citizens often need to police media, I question how involved readers will want to be in taking a digital red pen to The New York Times; I'd expect this more to be a technological tool that other journalists would use when reading each other's work, than a layperson without particular knowledge of journalism would read it. It is difficult to understand/use if you are not a particular sort (a news junkie, if you will) and I think this site alienates a lot of people from using it.
NewsTrust does what Spinspotter is trying to do, but in a simpler way: rate the news and have readers discuss its trustworthiness and other factors in a news story. A bit lackluster in comparison with Spinspotter, but accomplishes its task in an easier way. Most people are used to commenting, and this is an extension of that -- especially in a way that brings about a conversation -- that goes beyond the usual inane chatter and back/forth between opposing commenters. I like NewsTrust as feedback to the story I'm about to read as opposed to Spinspotter, where I am expected to trust in someone else (or myself) spotting spin. NewsTrust has reader accountability for what people write about an article, while Spinspotter is just a bunch of red marks on a digital page. Innovative (to be sure), but not enticing enough -- in my opinion -- to lure the common reader.
All of this though, makes me wonder if we're crossing the line into digital gluttony with everything at such a high interactivity level. Or, maybe I'm always the writer -- afraid of what a little red ink may tell me.
Two sites that I've been taking a look at are Spinspotter and NewsTrust. Both aim to take news stories down to their essentials but try to achieve this in provocative ways. Spinspotter has an interactive red pen, in which readers are asked to mark news stories in order to "[expose] news spin and bias, misuse of sources, and suspect factual support." NewsTrust goes another route by asking readers to review news stories through comments and starred ratings on categories from accuracy to trust. Is this really informing how we live, or are these adding more to the noise?
While the concept of Spinspotter is innovative, I wonder who is truly using it and for what reasons. As readers, Spinspotter asks us to recognize the spin and mark up news stories to "bring transparency to journalism." I wonder how well that'll work. Right off the bat, readers are asked to identify spin according to the Seven Deadly Spins, created through Spinspotter's Journalism Advisory Board and the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. In my opinion, this would require the tenacity of the fellow in the comic XKCD (pictured at left). While citizens often need to police media, I question how involved readers will want to be in taking a digital red pen to The New York Times; I'd expect this more to be a technological tool that other journalists would use when reading each other's work, than a layperson without particular knowledge of journalism would read it. It is difficult to understand/use if you are not a particular sort (a news junkie, if you will) and I think this site alienates a lot of people from using it.NewsTrust does what Spinspotter is trying to do, but in a simpler way: rate the news and have readers discuss its trustworthiness and other factors in a news story. A bit lackluster in comparison with Spinspotter, but accomplishes its task in an easier way. Most people are used to commenting, and this is an extension of that -- especially in a way that brings about a conversation -- that goes beyond the usual inane chatter and back/forth between opposing commenters. I like NewsTrust as feedback to the story I'm about to read as opposed to Spinspotter, where I am expected to trust in someone else (or myself) spotting spin. NewsTrust has reader accountability for what people write about an article, while Spinspotter is just a bunch of red marks on a digital page. Innovative (to be sure), but not enticing enough -- in my opinion -- to lure the common reader.
All of this though, makes me wonder if we're crossing the line into digital gluttony with everything at such a high interactivity level. Or, maybe I'm always the writer -- afraid of what a little red ink may tell me.
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