When I started thinking about what the New News Media would mean for the average person a few years from now I decided that if a person wanted they could have a more balanced news experience than the one they might have had 10 years ago. The ability to choose what their news is about and where their news comes from allows people to curate their own news 'paper'. When I first realized this, I thought it was great...a newspaper made only by me. Then I myself had to take an unbiased look at what the repercussions of this might be.

Look at the cover of a news paper, or on a news website like The New York Times we are presented with a fairly diverse array of stories. They may not be stories that you want to read, but glancing at page one of any news paper, even for just a moment, you are able to get the gist of what is happening in the world around you. My concern is, what happens when your page one is filled with your interests? Will a lack of outsider curation narrow your perspective further?

When a single person is allowed to decide what to read solely based on personal interests and beliefs, is what they're reading really an unbiased view of the world? Will people really seek the opinions of those who are different than them? It depends on the importance a person places on a diverse perspective and knowledge set.

What I am talking about is obtaining a broader view of what is happening in the world today, not just those things that have a direct impact on the reader. I fear that a purely reader curated news media would give way to a population of people who are relatively ignorant. They would be well versed in their areas of interest but completely oblivious to the world they live in.

As an early adapter myself I have experienced this. With multiple tabs of my Netvibes account dedicated to technology, art, culture and advertising and only one catch-all tab called 'General' where I have a couple of RSS feeds containing general headline news. Aside from the absence of diverse topics, there are so many things to read that I become overwhelmed. While there is a lack of hierarchy that allows me to absorb the news in an unbiased fashion, finding the big stories quick becomes an issue. It is obvious that even my own curation of my news has become slightly one dimensional. I have no idea what is going on in Myanmar right now, and the headlines on the New York Times website tell me I probably should.

User-curated news is a great thing. It provides control over sources and perspectives that people really haven't had before now. It will be interesting to see what larger cultural impacts this has on our societies globally. If no one was reading about politics and the world would we really care how much Bush was spending on Iraq, or that people were dying their every day? Will we come to a point where our lack of global awareness leads us to betray our fellow human? I think if we fail to diversify our news topics, that is possible. That being said, I should probably go read that article on Myanmar now.

User Profile
Name
Bob O'Flaurghty
Age
29 years old
Location
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation
Graphic DesignerThe Scenario:¹ As Bob goes through an average day he wants to get information on certain news items and topics.

When Bob wakes up in the morning he makes his coffee and sits down in front of his computer, he opens up Google News to see what the latest headlines are. Since Google News is a computer-generated news site,² he knows he will not experience any bias from any particular publisher as far as what stories are most important. The hierarchy of the page allows all of the stories equal importance (unlike the newspaper), so he can browse until he finds a story that seems interesting.

He selects an article entitled "Busy Day at Court Handling Sect's Children," he looks at the links to sources where he could read the same story and decides that his best bet is The New York Times. He clicks the link. Once on The New York Times website he begins reading. About half way through the article talks about the "Yearning for Zion ranch," Bob has never heard of this before so he clicks the link to learn more about this ranch. There he is able to see an image of the ranch along with several other stories about the ranch, he is satisfied now that he can put an image with a name and clicks the browsers back button to return him to the browser to finish reading the article. (more...)