In this day and age the need for newspapers is slowly but surely on its way to not being needed at all. There are so many more ways that we can get our news information now, we can watch television, go on the internet. These both take less than half the time it takes to go out to the gas station etc. and buy a newspaper for a few dollars. Another positive about the internet is that it is obviously free, there is no fee for using the internet and that is very convenient for its users.
However, there are also some negatives about having the internet. One being, not everyone in our society has good access to the internet. Not everyone has a computer at home, which means getting the internet would mean having to leave your home. Another negative about using the internet for all your news needs is that when everyone is able to comment on what is being written about, you are only exposed to certain perspectives of the story and not all of them.
The demise of the newspaper is also really affecting the way our democracy works. There are many reasons, one is that the internet, especially blogging lets people share their thoughts online, and it’s free for people to do it. It is also affecting our democracy in the fact that it keeps the information up to date that is being written about. There are also some negatives that will occur if the newspaper industry comes to an end. For example, there are a lot of celebrity, soft news that comes out of the internet and broadcast media. We will always have information on the celebrities of our time. However, will we still know everything that goes on in the white house? Or when a shooting has occurred? The newspaper industry and democracy feed off each other. So, if and when the newspaper industry dies it will be a lot harder to produce powerful consistent news.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree a lot with what you said in your post. I like that you pointed out the positives and negatives of the demise of the newspaper. The internet provides people with a wider access of sources, one of those being the newspaper. It doesn't hurt that internet is free and open to anyone. But as you stated, not everyone has access to the internet, and that makes an inconvience if someone would want to read the newspaper.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that you mentioned was that when everyone is able to comment, it leaves people with only a couple of people's perspectives. I disagree because the newspaper remains objective, so you won't see too many people's own thoughts. But with things like blooging, people in the U.S. and all over the world are giving their own perspective on things. You get both a different viewpoint, and a different cultural viewpoint. Silverblait stated that " Citizen Journalism fulfills an essential role of societal watchdog, calling attention to important information that is under-reported by the mainstream media". Meaning what the news doesn't catch a bystainder can.
the Washington Post commented on the demis of the newspaper. The veiwership of the newspaper has gone down significantly. More people view the news on the internet than actually reading the printed version. The demise of the nwes paper if it occurs will leave us with a lot of news based on things that seem pointless and useless.