Social Media Overtakes Television As Young People's Main Source of News, Says Report (bbc.com) 159
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Of the 18-to-24-year-olds surveyed, 28% cited social media as their main news source, compared with 24% for TV. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism research also suggests 51% of people with online access use social media as a news source. The report, now in its fifth year, is based on a YouGov survey of about 50,000 people across 26 countries, including 2,000 Britons. Facebook and other social media outlets have moved beyond being "places of news discovery" to become the place people consume their news, it suggests. And news via social media is particularly popular among women and young people. The study found Facebook was the most common source -- used by 44% of all those surveyed -- to watch, share and comment on news. Next came YouTube on 19%, with Twitter on 10%. Apple News accounted for 4% in the US and 3% in the UK, while messaging app Snapchat was used by just 1% or less in most countries. According to the survey, consumers are happy to have their news selected by algorithms, with 36% saying they would like news chosen based on what they had read before and 22% happy for their news agenda to be based on what their friends had read. But 30% still wanted the human oversight of editors and other journalists in picking the news agenda and many had fears about algorithms creating news "bubbles" where people only see news from like-minded viewpoints. Most of those surveyed said they used a smartphone to access news, with the highest levels in Sweden (69%), Korea (66%) and Switzerland (61%), and they were more likely to use social media rather than going directly to a news website or app. The report also suggests users are noticing the original news brand behind social media content less than half of the time, something that is likely to worry traditional media outlets.
News? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we honestly call the click bait articles on social media news?
Re:News? (Score:5, Funny)
Can we honestly call the click bait articles on social media news?
What this Anonymous Coward knows will shock you.
How Many? (Score:5, Interesting)
How many news stories by the supposedly professional news gatherers are festooned with copies of tweets by some random joe? Many stories are 80-90% Twitter comments.
Useless.
Social Media hasn't taken over the News Media, the News Medaia is freely giving itself over to Social Media.
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I see that you have been to the CBC website recently.
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How many news stories by the supposedly professional news gatherers are festooned with copies of tweets by some random joe? Many stories are 80-90% Twitter comments.
Oh, but don't you understand? "People are saying" this nonsense. That makes it oh so relevant.
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The same can be said for the so called real "news" networks.
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Not quite. While "real journalists" are terribly biased and are slaves to their narrative, the stuff on Facebook is like the Weekly World News. Some of the stuff is like batboy but more subtle but still obviously bogus.
People will gobble up the obviously absurd as long as it feeds into their biases.
Re:News? (Score:5, Insightful)
We never had good news before so what is the difference?
Sure back in the 1950-1990 we had our "trusted" news on TV. However they tried to cover a Whole days of activity around the world in 1 hour. The first half covering Local and State News, the second half World and National News. So much of the coverage didn't spend more than a few minutes on the topic.
The News Papers had much more depth to them. However during newspapers popularity there was a much lower literacy rate, so a good portion of the population couldn't fully read them, and just read what they could. So the headlines. Which is much shorter than a Twitter post.
Political Bias, Corruption and special interests were just as part of the media in the past as it is now, it may be worse, however why would the media cover its own problems that will make you lose faith in it.
For example look at the Electoral college results for presidential elections [270towin.com] You see nearly solid political US results during during the time of TV News. Then with the internet and cable news you see the Maps becoming more diverse.
While it may because of more polarization, but it is also because people are getting exposed to different ideas thus need to make their decisions from more data.
The Media liked JFK, so his indiscretions were ignored. The Media didn't like Nixon so he was kicked out of office. TV News made it easy to push an agenda.
Now Social media had made politics very messy. And some good and bad has come out of it. People are less trustful of the establishment candidate and want someone more outside. Hence the Trump and Sanders supporters, who feel that they had been told what to do for so long that they are trying to get a new voice free of this is how it is done. But this also creates the Problems with the Trumps and Sandars who are focused on particular issues and not the general complexities of running a government. Because of the wide coverage they can just talk about what drive the person passions and gloss over the details and complexities, as social media being more end user driven will focus on the reasons why they are voting for or against a person. While the more formal News did try to keep the information more broad and civil.
The Media (Score:5, Interesting)
We never had good news before so what is the difference?
Sure we have. We've also had crappy news before. It's trivial to point out examples of news done well over the last 100 years. It's even easier to point of examples of it being done badly.
Sure back in the 1950-1990 we had our "trusted" news on TV. However they tried to cover a Whole days of activity around the world in 1 hour. The first half covering Local and State News, the second half World and National News. So much of the coverage didn't spend more than a few minutes on the topic.
That's was the state of affairs basically until around the the late 1980s to early 1990s for television news. The first big change was CNN and the 24 hour news cycle. The second was the internet (specifically the web) in the 1990s.
The News Papers had much more depth to them. However during newspapers popularity there was a much lower literacy rate, so a good portion of the population couldn't fully read them, and just read what they could. So the headlines. Which is much shorter than a Twitter post.
Literacy rates have been rather high [ed.gov] for well over a century in the US, particularly for white americans. Literacy in the 1950s was well above 90%. The percentage of the population that couldn't read a newspaper in the US hasn't been over 10% since before 1910.
While it may because of more polarization, but it is also because people are getting exposed to different ideas thus need to make their decisions from more data.
The evidence seems to show people doing exactly the opposite. People are now able to seek out niche news sources that support their already existing world view and disregarding contrary view points regardless of their validity.
The Media liked JFK, so his indiscretions were ignored. The Media didn't like Nixon so he was kicked out of office.
Must be nice to have such a simplistic world view. Nixon getting kicked out of office had a LOT more to it than whether "The Media" liked him or not. Saying something like that is the sort of idiotic sound bite we get from the Rush Limbaughs of the world. Sounds good to people who want it to be true even though it's complete nonsense in reality.
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I tried to digest the PIACC data. What a hot mess. Here's one page that initially seemed promising:
Overall Results — Millennials [ets.org]
This covers 2012. I had to look elsewhere for descriptive text around the performance levels (Description of PIAAC literacy discrete achievement levels [ed.gov]).
Table 1 excludes a row for the United States, but includes asterisks for whether each value for "Significantly different (p < .05) from United States". (If there was a Level 6 it would be this: ability to glean prima
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That's was the state of affairs basically until around the the late 1980s to early 1990s for television news. The first big change was CNN and the 24 hour news cycle. The second was the internet (specifically the web) in the 1990s.
Neither of those really mattered to the current downward spiral in news reporting. The first thing that affected news was the rejection of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by the Republican controlled FCC. It was a bad decision then, and it's still a bad decision. This led directly to:
While it may because of more polarization, but it is also because people are getting exposed to different ideas thus need to make their decisions from more data.
The evidence seems to show people doing exactly the opposite. People are now able to seek out niche news sources that support their already existing world view and disregarding contrary view points regardless of their validity.
The "niche" news sources, which mostly aren't actually news sources but are blogs or some sort of forums, are the direct result of newspapers completely missing the boat in the 90s with the advent of the internet and failing to p
The media in 1972 was more than just TV (Score:5, Informative)
The truth about Nixon is that he was living in an age with basically a single-source media - Television. The TV news people weren't letting the story go, so he had to go.
The Watergate story was broken by the Washington Post NEWSPAPER. If you think TV was the only news source in 1972-73 then you are completely clueless. Newspapers, magazine, TV, and radio were all substantial parts of the media in the early 1970s.
Watergate (Score:4, Insightful)
how about one that implies some kind of fixed morality to the world that justified taking Nixon out while leaving Hillary Clinton free, considering they both did pretty much the same thing.
Exactly when did Hillary Clinton wiretap the Democratic Party Headquarters [wikipedia.org]? When did she order the CIA to block the FBI's investigation? When did Hillary force the Attorney General and Deputies to resign [wikipedia.org]? When did Hillary authorize the White House to pay blackmail payments?
Hillary hasn't even come close to the lack of ethics shown by the Nixon administration. If you think otherwise you don't understand the Watergate scandal well enough.
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This Libya crap is nonsense.
We went into Libya at the specific request of the Arabs. It was the Arab League that requested we intervene.
Also, the military is another department. That's the DoD and the President. Visit a real military installation some time and look at their chain of command.
Yours is precisely the kind of mindless nonsense that Facebook helps perpetuate. Although Fox News probably already has this particular nonsense covered.
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Last I checked Hillary hasn't condoned an illegal breakin to get an edge in an election and then covered it up with the power of her office.
That's not "pretty much the same" thing.
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No. because I live in reality.
Re:The Media (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth about Nixon is that he was living in an age with basically a single-source media - Television.
Only someone with absolutely no knowledge of history would say this.
Newspapers were still the major source of news in the early 1970s.
Especially investigative journalism of the sort that exposed Nixon.
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Ideas or propaganda? It is very easy to make up bullshit and inject it in social media as "fact". Hell, we have countries who know this and actually have dedicated propaganda divisions just to go out and troll the Net. Look how easily people swallow it as well.
Here in the US, people are unfriending/unfollowing/ranting at each other left and right, blaming the gun owners for the massacre, while saying that the guy who pulled the trigger was just part of the system and "venting", and would have been harmle
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...again, you are missing the point and focusing on your pet political agenda instead of paying attention to the real problem.
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I not sure that being aware that a man bit a dog on another continent really helps. Most people aren't really numerate enough to put things into perspective. It's very easy for people to take advantage of this and publish hysterical nonsense of all sorts. Also, the media can be very selective on what it chooses to report about. It can also craft it's language to push a particular agenda. It's all "curated" so that you believe whatever narrative they are trying to sell.
Very few news organizations are thoroug
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But this also creates the Problems with the Trumps and Sandars who are focused on particular issues and not the general complexities of running a government.
You almost had a good comment there until that part where your really went off the rails. One of those two people has never held public office. The other was a mayor, a US Congressman, and a US Senator. Likely knowing more about the general complexities about running a government more than you ever will.
However you did do a good job in showing that your point, up until your own personal bias slipped in, about how trust in reporting can be very tricky. And when we are are on Social Media, which I suppose
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Sanders is a "back bencher" that never accomplished anything. He has radical grand ideas that sound nice if you are a kid but are wildly impractical for a number of reasons. Sanders supporters are a great example of how Facebook can magnify the apparent appeal of kooks.
Also, your claims about his "government experience" are contrary to all of his rhetoric about being some sort of populist or outsider.
Sanders is a career politician that seems as out of touch with real governance as anyone.
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Whoa whoa.
Hold on there slick.
What Nixon did was illegal.
Even in JFK's time adultery wasn't.
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With all the abuses from "mainstream" news networks, how is getting info, four words at a time, squashed between pages of ads, any less accurate? We already have "mainstream" media adding gaps and editing interviews to make opposing viewpoints sound weak, not to mention prattle about worthless topics.
While everyone here in the states is unfreinding each other and pissing around on gun rights and blaming either Islam or gun owners, ICANN is in the process of being moved to the UN. This means that if a nati
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Only as much as we can call the click bait articles on "News media" websites news.
Re:Newspapers? (Score:3)
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Can we honestly call the click bait articles on social media news?
You can follow reputable news organizations on social media. Associated Press, BBC, NPR, even Slashdot and Snopes! Instead of browsing social media and then browsing your favorite news sites, you now get it all in one location.
Sure, people still post false clickbait articles on social media, but I don't think this is what is happening. From my own experience, and from the news, [slashdot.org] people are using social media less for sharing personal information and more for aggregating news stories.
Basically Facebook
Slashdot, News for nerds (Score:2)
That explains quite a lot (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, so now we have more people getting their news from facebook than from TV, newspapers or any "traditional" source.
And then look at something like snopes.com to have an idea how much of this so called news are hoaxes, misinformation or blatant lies*!
And none of them gets an even remote feeling that something as unreliable as facebook is as usefull as a rubber knife when you treat it as news source. Yes, it's great for cat pictures. And I love the "25 incredible stupid things stupid people did" stuff. But that's it. It's a SOCIAL media. Is your social environment a regular part of the news? No? See?
* and sometimes misunderstood satire
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In my experience, most newspapers are full of misinformation and blatant lies as well.
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http://currentinfishers.com/op... [currentinfishers.com]
Re:That explains quite a lot (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, but those are the advertisements, the personals section, and the opinion section. If you really try, you can find the news articles. Many of them quote lies (such as what Donald T. Rump said yesterday), but most of the articles aren't in themselves lies.
Three times I've been involved in events covered by a newspaper.
Out of any 10 random "facts" asserted by a newspaper article, in my experience 5 or 6 of those facts will be accurate, 2 or 3 will be wrong in some substantial way, and 1 or 2 will be flat-out fabricated.
And this would be for simple, non-controversial things like a car accident.
So whenever I read an article about something controversial in any way, I pretty much disbelieve all of it.
I figure about 25% of the facts from stories written on Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are true and the rest are utter bullshit. The problem is, there's no way to tell which ones came out of the reporter's/editor's rectal database.
Re:That explains quite a lot (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a reason that many workplace policies dealing with the media is "No comment". It's got nothing to do with hiding what happened (that will come out anyway), it's got everything to do with the source.
"A member of staff said"
"Insiders at the company tell us"
"A representative was quoted as saying".
Whereas if all they get is "A passerby commented" or "A witness was heard to say", then it instantly removes their credence.
It's not what was said (look at the nonsense spouted to media in any incident, including that they saw the policeman do this, or they heard 20 gunshots or whatever, compared to the CCTV of the same). It's who said it, in what capacity ("I heard that", "I think that", "It sounded like", etc.), and when that are much more important than the actual words.
Quotes are easy to come by. Quotes from officials are harder. And when the story is entirely "witness quotes" plus "the company was unavailable for comment" it's infinitely better than something which can be misconstrued as "We have it on the authority of person X working at the company that Y happened", whether that's true or not.
Re:That explains quite a lot (Score:5, Interesting)
It is worse that that it will feed your bias. Even the true news stories will be tend to be the ones that fit your world view. Frankly I miss the good old days of the news back when it was mostly right in the middle to slightly to the left. What we have on the Internet is terrible because people will pick the news sources they like. Frankly we do not need to see the news that we agree with. We need to see the news that we do not.
BTW people take a look at VOANews.com
It is the Voice of America news service and because it is a tiny government funded news service it really tries to provide a balance coverage without any spin. The reason is that it does not have to find sponsors and it is so tiny no one in the government bothers with it.
Before you dismiss it just take a look at.
Re:That explains quite a lot (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the Voice of America news service and because it is a tiny government funded news service it really tries to provide a balance coverage without any spin. The reason is that it does not have to find sponsors and it is so tiny no one in the government bothers with it.
Before you dismiss it just take a look at.
Which is somehow ironic considering what VOA has been founded to be....
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It is the Voice of America news service and because it is a tiny government funded news service it really tries to provide a balance coverage without any spin. The reason is that it does not have to find sponsors and it is so tiny no one in the government bothers with it.
Before you dismiss it just take a look at.
Which is somehow ironic considering what VOA has been founded to be....
News have gotten so bad, that old-school propaganda is less biased.
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It is worse that that it will feed your bias. Even the true news stories will be tend to be the ones that fit your world view. Frankly I miss the good old days of the news back when it was mostly right in the middle to slightly to the left.
Yeah, back when if you weren't one of the majority (straight, white, and middle-class), the news was just not for you. Those were great days for hetro white guys like us. Unarmed black people were still getting shot in the streets for no reason back then of course, but we didn't have to hear about it. We could pretend gay people didn't exist, because they had no way to force themselves into the news either.
Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days...
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Funny but those things where covered in the news even back then.
Maybe not in the 50s and early 60s but by the 70 and 80s it was.
Even better you did not have the likes of fox news or MSNBC.
Re:That explains quite a lot (Score:4, Insightful)
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the problem is that 'traditional' 'news' sources no longer have journalists in them, they only have editorialists. They don't report the news, they spin the news to match their opinions, they use rhetoric to 'guide' your opinions and they don't actually want you to know the 'facts' they simply want to tell you what to think. Kinda like one man shoots up a night club, and instead of being allowed to demonize the religion he says he did it for, we demonize the weapons he had, and by extension demonize anyone in the country who has such weapons. We can't demonize one class, but we can demonize the other, because that is what the 'traditional' news sources say.
It is not about demonizing, it is about finding solutions to the continuous and very serious problem of mass-shootings. Calling Islam evil does nothing about peoples murderous intent, gun control can't do anything about that either however it can certainly help mitigate the worst of the damage possible withing easy, legal reach. Even Bill O'rilly finally admitted that much
Bill Oreilly takes stunning stance [yahoo.com]
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Very few people in the US die from mass shootings. If it weren't for the morale effect, they wouldn't be a significant problem. The media are what makes them an apparently very serious problem.
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Very few people in the US die from mass shootings. If it weren't for the morale effect, they wouldn't be a significant problem. The media are what makes them an apparently very serious problem.
Like millions of other people with relatives or friends living in Orlando, I was one of those frantically dialing the phone hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. I can assure you the terror inflicted on millions as they wandered if their loved ones lied slain on a dance floor or a classroom is NOT some Hyped up Media
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A landslide or fire or earthquake that killed a similar number of people would cause the same distress. The 35W collapse in Minneapolis several years ago did that. I'm not trying to minimize your emotions, but concern for loved ones isn't unique to mass shootings.
And, consider what would happen in the absence of general concern. People would be dead. Many more people would frantically try to learn if their loved ones were among the dead, and they would be frightened and anxious. Most of them would f
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I've been telling friends, relatives, coworkers and strangers about just "googling" things for years.
But I am still amazed at how much bullshit and lies people continue to spew forth because they hadn't fact checked anything.
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I lost my faith in "fact checking" after the mess with Cruz and his PPO being cancelled.
You have to treat it all with as much skepticism as you would reserve for any of it.
Social Media is the main source (Score:2)
Remember everyone... (Score:2)
You read it here first!
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Social media? Gosh, the only thing more unreliable than the news channels.
Did you know, Facebook are soon going to make you pay unless you click this link before the 1st of June/July/August/September?
Did you know: this local crime happened (actually four years ago) and this little girl needs money for a life-saving operation (actually dead already), etc. etc. etc.?
Social media is the new gossip. The junk on there is really atrocious, and when news is discussed most of what pops up on social media is rumour and/or just outright lies.
If anything, my primary source of "news" is a web search. Not even a news search because that's just mainstream news lumped into one item. Even things like Wikinews at least have some element of journalism and truth to them more often that the TV channels or papers.
But social media? Really? Maybe that's how you hear *OF* a story, because you're always connected as a young kid, but for that to be your source of details of the news? That's just scary.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even things like Wikinews at least have some element of journalism and truth to them more often that the TV channels or papers.
This is the problem I have with the Press. They have too much power and influence.
Currently, the UK is debating whether or not to remain in the EU. The UK's most popular* newspaper is telling its readers to vote out. The Press should not be allowed to influence its readers into making decisions based upon its** opinion.
* Popular != Good
** The opinion of the editor
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
It's the owner's opinion, although I expect he would have hired an editor that aligned to his opinion.
A journalist at another newspaper (not owned by Murdoch) had this in a recent column:
I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”
It's the opener to this article [standard.co.uk].
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Yeah, I don't read the news to get someone's OPINION on it. I read the news to find out WHAT HAPPENED and form my own opinion.
It's a vastly different thing, and why social networking (OPINION-based) is a bad news source.
I would pay a lot of money for a website that edits the news back to "X happened in Y" without visible bias or opinions. Hell, I'd pay even more if I could filter out sports news, or stories about celebrities, etc.
I often think about creating a "How I read the headlines" website where I ju
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Even things like Wikinews at least have some element of journalism and truth to them more often that the TV channels or papers.
This is the problem I have with the Press. They have too much power and influence.
Currently, the UK is debating whether or not to remain in the EU. The UK's most popular* newspaper is telling its readers to vote out. The Press should not be allowed to influence its readers into making decisions based upon its** opinion.
* Popular != Good
** The opinion of the editor
That is not the real problem. The newspaper can express any opinion they want. The problem is that they have been LYING for decades and blamed all kinds of nonsense on the EU, that either had nothing to do with EU, or in most cases: Simply wasn't true.
If you got rid of the blatent lies. It opinions of the tabloids wouldn't in themselves be a problem.
Really scary (Score:2)
Even worse, the attention-mongering media that can't be trusted either now uses the most outrageous social media posts to create controversial news stories and attract viewers/listeners/clicks.
The real failure is in the system of education. Few peop
explains a lot. (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't be much worse than womans mags (Score:5, Insightful)
The psuedo scientific drivel my wife reads in these moronic magazines just beggars belief sometimes. Whether its health, diet or beauty advice, most of it seems to be either made up on the spot with no scientific basis, either by the know-nothing neurotic maghag "journalists" , or by whatever crank they've waved some money at and who can string together enough semi coherent sentences to create an article out of. I genuinely believe some of these magazines should come with a health warning on the cover because of the rubbish they peddle to impressionable girls.
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That would explain why most kids now adays are so ill informed. My younger sister is 30 and lives on social media, it never ceases to amaze me the shit she believes or doesn't know about, especially around science where the just plain WRONG information is more abundant than facts on social media.
I could say the same about most Fox News watchers and Daily, Mail readers,.... the list goes on and on, except they are usually very angry too.
Re:explains a lot. (Score:4, Informative)
I could say the same about most Fox News watchers and Daily, Mail readers,.... the list goes on and on, except they are usually very angry too.
It's fine to be angry over something, even angry all the time if you want. But look at the people who are acting violently and attacking people, for the most part it's not those "angry fox news watchers" or "angry daily mail people" it's the ones getting their news via social media, media that thrives on clickbait or outrage culture. Fosters insular thinking and groupthink and/or supports authoritarian viewpoints and/or anti freedom of speech/expression. Take your pick. BLM, anti-trump protesters, DNC/RNC protesters, occupy wallstreet(after it was hijacked by progressives), anti-MRM groups. The people violently protesting individuals like Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, Gloria Steinem? They're the same ones who claim that they can't be racists because they're a minority or because they're a particular sex/race/religion and openly state that violence is a perfectly fine means of protesting.
You should be paying attention a bit more.
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Perfect timing (Score:3)
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The Reddit thing was pretty toe-curling, wasn't it? I'm always inclined to suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy, and I do think that's the most prominent explanation here. But to be clear, that's not absolving specific moderators of outright malice; the "cock-up" here is in how Reddit gives so much power to badly supported volunteer moderators.
Forum moderation is difficult. Some people are good at it, some people are bad at it. Not everybody who volunteers for it has the best of intentions; some see it as
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The Reddit thing was pretty toe-curling, wasn't it? I'm always inclined to suspect cock-up rather than conspiracy, and I do think that's the most prominent explanation here. But to be clear, that's not absolving specific moderators of outright malice; the "cock-up" here is in how Reddit gives so much power to badly supported volunteer moderators.
Wasn't a cockup. /r/news has had a history over the last couple of years of silencing anything that doesn't fit with their opinion, and if it runs contrary to their opinion it'll be deleted, you'll be banned on top of it. They were going out of their way to delete posts that were calling for blood donations and so on as well, and were deleting posts right up until the point where they couldn't keep up with deleting the stuff anymore the made a megathread.
It also doesn't help that many of the mods on the de
Re:Perfect timing (Score:4, Interesting)
The point of the Slashdot moderation scale is to control the visibility of posts. More highly moderated posts are more highly visible, but you can still see the low-moderated ones if you want. It's not really about measuring your e-peen. For the purpose for which it's intended, a 7-point scale is absolutely fine. Capping negative moderation at -1 means that posts which get "unfairly" moderated down soon after going live can be "rescued" relatively easily.
I've seen sites which use uncapped community-moderation scales (e.g. Eurogamer). My experience with them is that they tend to have a much stronger culture of "+1 means agree, -1 means disagree" with less regard for the quality of the post than you get at Slashdot. They give a bigger incentive to try to tailor your posts to the group-think, by allowing users to aim for "high scores", where posts are moderated +100 or something silly like that.
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TV is history (Score:3, Interesting)
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So you watch the football and eurovision on TV and go to facebook for your news. Wow, you're the real intellectual arn't you.
" It rarely covers important issues anyway"
Guess it depends on your definition of important really doesn't it. Obviously if kitten pictures are top of your list then Facebook News is for you.
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... or election results like the UK leaving Europe next week ...
l keep hearing Britons say that. So how will that work? Will you fire up the ginormous diesel engines you have hidden in the White Cliffs of Dover and sail ye olde Albion out to sea while a brass band plays 'Rule, Britannia'???
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You joke, but that's actually a more coherent plan than half the "Leave" campaign can put forward for real.
The quality of the "debate" around the EU referendum has been one of the most depressing things I think I've ever seen in our political system, and that's saying something.
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You joke, but that's actually a more coherent plan than half the "Leave" campaign can put forward for real.
The quality of the "debate" around the EU referendum has been one of the most depressing things I think I've ever seen in our political system, and that's saying something.
I've been following the Brexit debate and It seems to me that most of the people being polled by TV crews just talk about 'feelings', they 'feel' they are getting a bad deal from the EU, they 'feel' Britain is carrying the rest of the EU financially, nobody seems to have bothered to check. Then there is a whole legion factual errors like blaming the EU for things the UK government screwed up. Things like failing to fully exploit the latitude given by EU rules to crack down on benefits scammers, the educatio
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That was my first reaction as well. There are no FB reporters in the middle east, for example - any news from there comes from some other news source. Or some person on FB posting pictures from some unverified location.
It is more the filtering that concerns me. People insulate themselves and end up being unaware of things going on in the world. That's the thing about a real newspaper that is different - as you peruse the thing, you encounter stories that you might not normally read that turn out to be q
Young people are slow.... (Score:2)
Crips I stopped watching the news or reading a paper more than 5 years ago as the feed of news from the internet was far better and faster.
Hey 18-24 year olds, get with the program you luddites!
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Are you counting online versions of newspapers. Cause I'll read the online edition of a newspaper.
This is news ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm 54, and haven't relied on Television for news in well over a decade.
Social media ? Not so much. Although I do use it as a bird-dogging tool. . . ."crowd-searching" the news, and then checking a few other sources.
Lately, the noise-to-signal ratio on social media, and Fecesbook and Twatter, respectively, has approached 99%. . . .
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The theme song for this story (Score:2)
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More reliable? (Score:2)
It's funny cause Slashdot is my primary news source.
This is only because I don't watch TV, at all. I only trowel around FB to get updates from friends and family, and if anything gets posted on /. that's even remotely sketchy, there are 30 keyboard warriors ready to pounce on the subject to debunk it....And that one AC who always spouts racial slurs.
The other side (Score:2)
What worries me more than social media becoming the primary source, is the idea that we should only read be interested in things we are already interested in.
We're in a period of strongly polarized opinions where the idea of political discourse seems to be that you and me sit alone on our respective mountaintops and yell at each other. It bloody important to read news that doesn't fit your existing opinions or interests, how else will you ever question them? Or get new ones?
I try to make a point of reading
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What worries me more than social media becoming the primary source, is the idea that we should only read be interested in things we are already interested in.
me too!
More seriously, the quality of comments on newspaper sites is getting too close to the hater vs fanboy arguments that make Youtube and Facebook comments unreadable, and what makes Twitter a place for abuse and bullying more often than anything else.
If these circumstances dictate that it's normal to just abuse other people in case of disagreement, finding refuge in group-think is not that crazy. Perhaps it has always been like this, people who vote similarly read the same news sources and congregate w
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Perhaps it has always been like this, people who vote similarly read the same news sources and congregate with like-minded people only. The internet just makes groups bigger and makes these behaviours more obvious to the observer.
Probably Mr Goatse was right all along.
You're probably right, but at the risk of falling into the "everything was always better before" trap, I can't help but think that even if you used to read a right-of-center newspaper, you would get differing viewpoints, some not following general orthodoxy. A "perfect" algorithm that can with a very high degree of certainty give you what you most want to read could create the feeling that the world is *exactly* as you think. The only conclusion then, when meeting people who disagree, is that they must all
Better algorithms will lead to better news... (Score:2)
Once RNN reaches a point of being able to validate sources and use human comment input from social authorities (individuals with high reputation for wisdom, education and intellect) then people will gravitate more. Trust in the major networks has declined over the years. http://www.pewresearch.org/fac... [pewresearch.org]
This is not news! (Score:2)
"People is paying more attention to this person that that one in order to know more news."
The point is that people is swallowing whatever they are said, no matter who is those who speak.
Not surprising (Score:2)
Instead of getting a much more full and complete picture of the event they get a snippet devoid of content. All they hear/read is, "White guy found with child porn" or "Catholic priest rapes young boy", with no understanding of how long this has been going on, what happened to the victim or the punishment of the criminal.
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Which is why one of my side-hobbies is pissing off Facebook etc. "friends" by correcting their stories, linking to Snopes, and explaining the bullshit they're pushing.
If they block me after, that's up to them, but I'll be damned if I'll let spurious facts slide past without comment - whether they support my opinion or not.
But, hey, another of my side-hobbies is reporting advertising to the relevant agencies when it's non-compliant or misleading. Try it, it's fun to complain.
What's wrong with that? (Score:2)
Nowadays, liberals get their news from comedians like Maher or Colbert, while conservatives get their news from another type of entertainers, people like O'Reilly or Limbaugh. Eiher way the information goes through heavily biased lens.
So what's wrong with if younger people choose Facebook instead? Sure just like on TV (and even Netflix now with Chelsea Handler) the liberal point of view is more present; as an example, bashing Trump counts as news. But information also gets filtered by your connections/frien
yay! (Score:2)
Duh (Score:1)
Who is the source, what are the credentials of that source and who pays them.
Even in regular magazines and media, they are slipping in adds subtly deemed as news, at the bottom you may spot the "advertisement" in a very small font.
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Even in regular magazines and media, they are slipping in adds subtly deemed as news, at the bottom you may spot the "advertisement" in a very small font.
It's worse than that. Sometimes, it doesn't say "advertisement", it uses the marketing-speak "sponsored content".
Most News Websites are Tabloids (Score:2)
Social media is.... (Score:2)
...the one news source that's worse than television news. Even Fox News usually refrains from making shit up (i.e. they take real events but report them incorrectly), but Facebook is littered with outright hoaxes.
And in other news... (Score:1)
This is good (Score:2)
One as good (Score:2)
No! Bad! (Score:1)
1. People getting their news from social media services that are not even nominally bound by any sort of journalistic integrity. Amidst allegations of liberal favoritism, Facebook recently said that, in addition to trending topics and modest human curation which is supposed to be unbiased and minimal, news feed content derives from algorithmically cherry-picked stories; said cherry-picking is conducted with the goal of keeping the user engaged and/or happy [citation neede
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Perhaps people are attracted to "liberal echo chambers" because most people are libertarians?
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Tumblr feminists are, for the most part, mentally ill. All you can do is feel sorry for them and hope they get the help they need.
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