DING: Bruno Latour's Concept Applied to NowPublic

No News is Good News.

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“What information you consider "newsworthy" and what sources you are most likely to trust?” - A difficult question to consider in a number of ways. Truth is a word that is imbued with its inability to remain concrete; indeed it would seem to be in a constant state of slippage, from one context to the next. It is the essence of the floating signifier, as the signified is continually migrating, altering depending on who is claiming its all encompassing authority. I propose that any news that proclaims the truth, especially an objective truth, is the most likely to be a manipulator, or as Barthes would say, a myth maker. I do however peruse news through the typical unreliable resources of the internet, Digg and Reddit, but remain skeptical, and, what I would consider, aggressively vigilant of the source of said news. Ironically, the most reliable resources are those who claim no truth, but instead are self aware charlatans of the news room, here I am referencing John Stewart and the Daily Show and at times, The Colbert Report. Perhaps the most effective way to filter the constant bombardment of media garble is to consider our fractured subjectivities, and understand that no news is objective, which may lead me to conclude with the old cliché, that no news is good news.

Vivienne Westwood (A.K.A Viviş) (from what I heard from my mother)(who is a very reliable source of information because she is a mother, she would never lie) never picks up a newspaper, listens to the radio, watches TV, or looks at a magazine, so she can stay away from all the balloon news that keep on inflating and poping and inflating and poping around us. This is her method of staying pure (puré) 

I am similar to Viviş, I don’t think I have bought a newspaper in the last four years. I had TV from April 2007 – March 2008 so at that time I watched lots of Oprah (she’s so powerful) and Obama and the Olsen twins… I think these four some up my American dream… They are so sexy.

Other than that I am like Viviş… Sometimes I get text messages from my ex-boyfriend like “HEATH LEDGER IS DEAD” but that is about it… Or my brother calls me and says “A PLANE JUST WENT INTO ONE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTERS”… I mean looking and waiting for news is so pathetic… Like waiting for the 5 o’clock news… it is like waiting for something in the world to happen, but not actually DOING anything… Just waiting… That is SO boring, I CANNOT live like this…

Very interesting post.

Thanks Sanjay,

It's a bit of an experiment, we'll see how it goes.

I saw Latour his speech as well as many others on the subject. 

I think all this sounds great and public generated news is a positive step in deed. However all seem to forget the essential to some extend. Reality and long term thinking. 

All those ideas are based on the past, and past knowledge and past experiences not the future nor the present reality. It does lack vision and flexibility as well as pragmatism.

Just two example, last years Typhoon, no power, no TV, no Telephone nor any cell phones working, however the radio did and all new and information came through he radio.

Energy, It is assumed that energy will remain cheep and accessible to all, wish is not the case, it will become expensive, and the internet does need a lot of it so some one has to pay for it. Who? Adds? The way the economy is unfolding, I think not.

Access, who can access the new media? Western Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea and a few people here and there. However not the masses, Africa, Asia, South America for the most part will never have their voice heard. 

Internet freedom of Speech, Will it remain? I think we may have a couple of challenges coming up and what about acceptability and Accuracy? Recent event in Gaza have proven the accuracy to be more then lacking, even man stream media had a hard time distinguishingbetween true and false.

Propaganda versus News? Which is going to prevail? Some government do already use armies of Bloggers and New Media News writers to flood the internet with propaganda not news nor CJ, yet it is made to look like CJ.

And there would be much more....

Excellent, thoughtful discussion. I look forward to seeing where you take this in the lecture/assembly.

 The set up for this discussion is great both as an intro for our students and for others "peeking in". The belief that  citizen journalism is a means of expanding the sphere of legitimate debate is clearly establishing itself, but what concerns me is less the idea that truthfulness is at risk  but the principles of debate are at jeopardy. There is much to much argument

Interesting point. It actually reminds me of John Stewart's appearance on Crossfire where he accused Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala of "partisan hackery" when they could be having civilised discourse. He suggests that by reducing the political discussion (in this case, the American Political Discussion) to a right / left dualism, Carlson and Begala, respectively, along with similar shows, are in fact acting as extensions (and defacto agents) of the main political parties and doing theater rather than debate.

 The last part of  my above post seems to have been cut off, but what I was trying to continue with was the notion that with the expansion of the sphere of legitimate debate by non-professionalized CJ we have  a potential degradation of how argument, debate and  discourse works productively. Primarily we see this within the argument ad hominem strategies used by CJ ( not specifically, Now Public), blogs and internet news. The idea that if we attack the context or personal subject or bias the so called 'facts' we can sway uninitiated viewers/readers. This can also be seen within Talk radio ( Rush Limbaugh) and also TV news as comedy programming ( Daily Show and Colbert Report as well as its precedants that go back to the original Laugh In and SNL). These means of 'debating'  current events and what is news confuses  and misleads the non-discerning viewer/listener.

Is there a way that I should be posting so as to not get truncated or have hanging sentences..... and ultimately be verified. ( nice metaphor for the lack of professionalized contributions )

I have never seen this issue before, comments being cut off I mean... we'll have a look.

Hmm, when I was asked what I consider news worthy I immediately thought of my sister's opinion. Both her and I have moved from Britian to Canada and have noticed and extreme difference in the way news is depicted/shown in the two countries. My sister is constantly complaining about the fact that it feels like the Canadain and American news networks are trying to sell their viewers something, trying to entertain their viewers with common interest stories and free gifts. In contrast, the British news delivers its news in a very serious tone with monotone voices to show their objetivity and the importance of the information they are portraying. I don't know if I believe either portrayal to be better than the other. I think that the Brits perhaps feel more trustworthy of the truth of their news because it has always claimed objectiviy and has always presented itself seriously. However, this is also seem as impersonal by some and hard to connect with which is where the CTV and Fox News approach may seem more popular.

As for myself, I think that I prefer to hear my important news through people I know. The news only ever gives a small amount of information on a subject so I tend to ask people around me to explain political, social or economic concerns to me as I can spend more time asking questions and trying to relate the information to my everyday life.

my news:


I am not one for television, and have never been. I read. If I read ‘daily news’ it is usually from, well, the www.CBC.ca. I guess this is my brand, although I would like to think that I have not been 'branded' by the information that I choose to read. I hope that it would reflect my values rather then 
The CBCorporation, covers issues in the ‘Sphere of Consensus’ and the ‘Sphere of legitimate Controversy’, without aggravating me too much. The best part: the comments that are posted by readers. They are raw, and seem to be a good source of ‘deviance’ and so I often find myself reading through the usually argumentative posts. It is not user moderated, however, and is subject to the website censor who removes the worst, or perhaps the best, of the posts which are still only responses to the info the CBC journalists write about.

When the chaos of daily news becomes indigestible, I rely on a reflective news-information source: The Sun Magazine. It is a monthly journal, self-described as ‘personal. provocative. political.’ Even as it is subject to editing, I feel that there are a wide range of views expressed, both from readers and regular contributors. It is not aiming at ‘truth’ or ‘fact’ as it is more a collection of views. There is no attempt to mask the intent; there is also no advertising. I enjoy the time it takes to read. There is more time to think.
As for CJ, it seems to be a necessary direction to take the distribution of information. This is a channel for journalists to be able to morph from a corporate affiliation to an independent model, as mbaumgartner described in his lecture. As independent journalists gain status, the information bias would become more clear, not hidden behind a corporate body or disguised as an objective truth. Alignment with a person appeals to me over having to dissect the large business structure, as it is more like the familiarity of a friend, where the subject position is more deeply understood.

            The diagram of the “uncensored war” is like a tornado with the eye being the sphere of consensus or the calm. The sphere of legitimate controversy is the winds of the tornado created by the traditional media. The sphere of deviance is what is untouched by the tornado.

            Another way I see this relationship of the mass media and audience is the vertical one where discussion and debate is a vertical one where discussion and debate is controlled by what the mass media chooses as newsworthy. 

                        Mass Media

                                    Audience

The Big Media chooses is not “top down” in its relationship to its audience but is horizontal. Consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance are on the same level. There is more legitimate discussion of topics and less filtering of the news. Big Media does not leave out the sphere of deviance.  In this model the audience chooses what is newsworthy.

Mass Media <---->　Audience

 “What information do you consider "newsworthy" and what sources you are most likely to trust?” I found this to be an interesting question. Not because it calls up a quandary of the intentions and political leans of news people, but because it has forced me to locate the news I have acquired as of recent.  Unfortunately it seems to simmer down to people I respect within earshot.  I am fawningly trusting of people who have big vocabularies or sharp wit.  With this process I unwittingly inherit their political views (strong left).  I have never owned a TV and made a habit of internet news sources which always seem brief and trite, as effect have been unfortunately un-informed on almost all global issues.  I guess I feel uncomfortable speaking of news because I am unfortunately ignorant.  I don’t think this is entirely uncommon, if my generation is accused of being benign to world issues I would agree.  But despite these accusations I have been impressed with the skepticism displayed, I think the tendency is somewhat inscribed in our raising.

I have never been a fan of newspapers, or news programs that are aired on television. The stories that are reported are usually short summaries and often go into little depth. I find these stories to be a distraction from my real life. I am more interested in learning a lot about very specific things. I would rather specialize in something than to be a generalist. I think “the news” caters to those who are interested in having a general view of the world, even if that view is biased. One form of news that I find most interesting is the kind that I get from museums and galleries. When I see a painting that excites me, I have succeeded at finding news that is important to me.  I am of course limited by what the museums and galleries choose to exhibit. We are all being coerced by the news and the stories that are fed to us. Quite often, the most interesting news will never see the light of day.

Response for AHIS 333

I am generally out of the loop on the news. I haven't had cable TV in a few years and the only channels I do get are French. And I haven't practiced my French in years.
That said even when I did have cable I was more likely to watch The Search For the Next Pussycat Doll than I was to watch the news.

One. News personalities bug me. ie/ The very big and very fake hair from the women and the very tanned and make-up'd skin of the men. If their hair and their skin is obviously not real, why should I think what they have to say is?

Two. News shows tend to spend more time telling you what they will be talking about and less time actually talking about it.

As for print news? I like reading the paper, but I rarely do it. The only time I find myself picking up a "real" paper is at a doctors office (although they normally have magazines), waiting to board a plane, or when I worked at a video store and business was slow. I now get my news from 24 or Metro but I don't really consider it a reliable source of the news. It's like Cliffnotes - but the jazzed up, show tune version of the news.

If I do feel like I'm out of the loop on current events, I'll watch old news clips online, or on Youtube, though generally only interviews.

My news mostly comes from friends. If they think it's worth talking about then maybe it is something I will care about and can follow up with. In that case, I would go to an online version of the paper.

But really, the news is someone's interpretation of the events. I probably shouldn't admit this, but if it is engaging and entertaining and is being presented in a way that I am likely to grasp I might be more likely to read it and believe it. I read a Noam Chomsky book 6 months ago and for weeks I was spouting off info and quoting him. I felt engaged with events that I had only really heard about and had recounted to me. And although the topics were not new news, but rather old news, I was more engaged with it than all the new news and headlines from the papers.

So who do I believe? Well I would say I have varying levels of disbelief. I do however believe Noam Chomsky.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I peeled my eyes away from the live TV coverage of the second plane plowing into the World Trade Center, left home and ran to work. The production department at the newspaper where I was the managing editor had already been in since 6 a.m., as this was deadline Tuesday, so no one had heard the news, and there was no TV in the building. The staff rushed to get up to speed online, but every site we tried was down due to overload, so in the end, everyone crowded around an old transistor radio.

A couple of years ago, we had an earthquake-preparedness test at work. The scenario was that all electronic communication would be down. We came up with a plan to print out 'fresh sheets' that we photocopied and posted in the street-front window and on street furniture (hydro poles etc.), based on whatever we heard on the scanner or from whomever we were able to find to interview. The sheets were replaced as we received updates.

I spend half my summer off the grid, away from high-speed access, and when I am hooked in, I am too ADD to sit hunched over a computer screen in order to connect or figure out what's going on in the world. It's the same reason I won't Twitter or join Facebook.

Despite the extolled utopian virtues of New Media — so all-inclusive, so fresh, so global, so cheap, so egalitarian — it speaks to those who embrace online connectivity or who have access. Even among those millions of public voices, there are those who will not be heard because they have different priorities, different economic or educational circumstances and different personal rules of public engagement. While I'm glad to see we're not going to be mowing down forests to dump ad-driven, corporate-owned newspapers on an uninterested public, I also see the beginning of the end of real, casual and random public chatter that happens when a true cross-section of people share sections of the paper at the coffee shop or on the bus.

I do not watch news on tv nor read the newspapers. It does no make sense to me to listen or watch something that is own for the same people that constantly bombarded me with advertisement trying to brainwash me and convince me to do what is profitable for their business.

I am also a business man, a warrior and my enterprise is about to keep on watching myself to make sure my powerful attention is focus in something that can help me to become a wise man ( and change the world, kidding..).

I have to first admit that what I consider to be reliable and trustworthy sources of news are old fashioned: major news papers like The Province or NY Times, the television broadcast CBC. In comparison, blurb papers like Metro or 24 I can't take seriously.  I find the following quote to be absolutely true, even of my chosen news sources.  I often wonder what it is that they have edited out, especially at CBC whom news anchors are so very moderate.

"Anyone whose views lie within the sphere of deviance—as defined by journalists—will experience the press as an opponent in the struggle for recognition. If you don’t think separation of church and state is such a good idea; if you do think a single payer system is the way to go; if you dissent from the “lockstep behavior of both major American political parties when it comes to Israel” (Glenn Greenwald) chances are you will never find your views reflected in the news. It’s not that there’s a one-sided debate; there’s no debate."

However, these news sources are two major systems of media power that have been set up for me through my family. Its hard to break this habit. I guess I have been guided into a routine that believes that these sources come across as local and Canadian and my brain equates that to more trustworthy.


I found this quote interesting:
"Within the sphere of legitimate debate there is some variance. Journalists behave differently if the issue is closer to the doughnut hole than they do when it is nearer the edge. The closer they think they are to the unquestioned core of consensus, the more plausible it is to present a single view as the only view,..."

...because it not only applies to news sources but also to most academic institutions. There are manyt of different groups protesting many views but they all seem so small, there numbers don't hold the same strength, the mainstream status quo always seems to win on all levels from classroom to directors.

Lastly, this quote made sense to me and is a major mistake that people make in regards judgment of others opinions and beliefs. I think that for the majority of the world, we should be given the benefit of the doubt that we are contemporary, open-minded individuals with abilities to see situations in a somewhat egalitarian mindset. I think that the media often forgets this and speaks as if we are still practicing 1950's conservatism.

"Glenn Greenwald did a Salon Radio podcast with me about this piece and the arguments behind it. Here’s his post introducing it. (About a 25-minute listen. There’s also a transcript.) Sample:

The ability to infect us with notions of what’s realistic is one of the most potent powers press and political elites have. Whenever we make that kind of decision — “well it’s pragmatic, let’s be realistic” — what we’re really doing is we’re speculating about other Americans, our fellow citizens, and what they’re likely to accept or what works on them or what stimuli they respond to. And that way of seeing other Americans, fellow citizens, is in fact something the media has taught us; that is one of the deepest lessons we’ve learned from the media even if we are skeptics."

Though newscasts claim to be unbiased, it is not really possible to be completely so. They often present stories as having negative outcomes because they know (or at least assume) it will be the 'consensus'. It's agreeable for most events which truly are negative, but nevertheless the reporting is still biased. For example if a child molester or murderer is let out into the community after an agreeably inadequate jail sentence. Virtually everyone will think of this in a negative way, and rightfully so. The news doesn't have to carefully report this in a neutral manner in order to consider the thoughts of the one or two people watching who think child molestation is okay.

Generally I'd like to think that the majority of people are able to understand that what they see on the news isn't necessarily guaranteed fact. I watch the news and listen to the radio in addition to reading the newspaper and internet. I along with most others choose to take the facts from what is reported and draw my own conclusions.

After the recent oil spill in Australia, it was first reported that 20 tonnes of oil were spilled. It was later discovered that it was actually over 200 tonnes. I also recently read about a bombing in Somalia a few years ago where the UN reported 15 deaths when it was actually in the two or three hundreds. Misrepresented statistics aside, we still are now informed that such things are going on in the world which is why the news is useful. However we just need to keep in mind that this information is coming from multiple sources which are not necessarily trustworthy.

When watching the news with family and friends, any one of us is quick to point out ridiculous things which are said in interviews and reports which are clearly untrue or very stretched in the least. I don't know anyone who changes their opinion on something just 'because the news told them'.

Therefore, from whatever source news reporting is flawed at best and always biased to some degree, but it provides us with a general guideline of fact. The rest doesn't matter anymore because as it was said in the article, we can go online and quickly connect with like-minded people for further discussion.

AHIS333
I don’t have a TV at home, and I don’t really listen to radio news. I rarely read newspapers, but when I read for news, I usually would pick sections from things like Georgia Straight that catch my eyes and skim through quickly. So I guess my source is the Internet news articles and conversations (gossip?) among friends and family. I don't believe that everything I hear is trustworthy, but I tend to believe in what I want to believe, both from reliable source and others that are not, as long as it’s not anything absurd. I consider anything that interests me and what is important to me as news. For me, news doesn’t have to be new, beacuse the things that intrigue me are newsworthy for me, whether it’s true or not. If I want to know more in-depth about something I heard that interests me, I will again rely on the Internet. For example, I would read more articles and/or watch video clips on Youtube that relate to that topic.
When I was younger, I used to just watch or listen to the news and think what they were telling were ‘facts’, but I realized that any source that tells the news (‘stories’) is telling it from some sort of a perspective/ bias. And I think everyone has debatable opinions, which makes me come to my own conclusions about the ‘stories’ I hear. So, now I tend to gather many ideas and opinions from sources available, and sort of assume at the end.

    I have had believed in the TV news more than other media sources like radios or newspapers. Because I believed that video recording type of visual documentation can’t be deceived. But, it was all wrong ideas. All these could be invented in many different ways of purposes and embellished with someone’s opinions top of the truth.
   
    When I lived in South Korea, the most news channels that I trust were CNN and BBC. Because these channels were the only broadcast that I could receive worldwide news at that time. Later I found out that the subordinate relationship between Korean government and the U.S government controls the media in South Korea. I know that many countries use CNN and BBC news as references or sources to look at the world. If AlJazeera was the main source to learn about the world news, then I might have totally different point of view to look at the world now.

    Since then, I try to meet all different news sources such as TV news, newspapers, and magazines from different countries, as many as possible. By comparing all the different sources in a same topic of the news, I find the basic information, the common reports in all various sources. If I want to know more about the details, I rather consult the Internet sources. The real citizen witnesses put their comments and video clips, the personal and real experience stories of the news.  I put all these various reports together, and I think collectively to learn the news.

    However, all this time, the truth is revealed after time pass whether people want or not. Some part of the news is still remained as a secret hitherto unknown to the world. There must be some people who want to conceal or exaggerate the truth. It is almost impossible to receive news without any someone’s viewpoints. But I hope that many people shares about their thoughts and comments on the news as well as the witness experience with discretion or perception.  

I used to be very interested in the news. The news was always on in my house, every waking moment. I new a bit about everything that was going on. It was enlightening, enjoyable, invigorating. Discussions would always swim around what was happening, what was current. After years of this, i realized that i knew nothing. I knew nothing about nothing. All i new was other fragments of information, fragments that i was keeping myself updated almost in a warzone mentality, always preparing for something. Floods here, hurricanes there, murders up, rapists down, theft left, economy right. What do i know? Nothing. nothing. I was tired. So i turned off everything. No more radio, no more newspapers, no more CNN before bed, no more blogs, no more live feeds. It was over. I was going to find the tools to understand else where. The idea of the NEW(S) was not something i want to be a part of anymore. I was going to spend my time researching something that could actually offer me tools to access the world.

Now i live off of podcasts.

This American Life, WYNC, The New Yorker, CBC Ideas, NPR, Chicago Public Radio, and the BBC.

They are much slower and to my liking.

After reading other responses, and thinking a bit more about the news I choose to listen to, I realize that I most like my news to be framed within a debate (this is probably why I feel so connected to the topics of this course).  There is no room allowed for debate with news about murders, rapes, and natural disasters, and I can understand why I, and obviously many others, have chosen to block those news stories out.  

So, it is where I see healthy debates taking place that I prefer to focus my attention.  CBC Radio (not without its biases) is one place, and the internet is somewhere with great potential (and realized potential), but I do find it difficult to navigate my way through the vastness of it all.  I tend to seek out sites that like-minded people have suggested, and I don't know how well that works within Latour's theory, as a certain level of consensus is maintained within these debates.  Plus, I sometimes feel like one of those "uninitiated viewers/readers" that Simon mentions in his post, who may easily be mislead by "the means of 'debating' current events" laid out by shows such as The Daily Show with John Stewart, or the Colbert Report.  I do love the format of these shows, however, and have always wished that Rick Mercer would pump it up a notch (and get a little more confrontational...so un-Canadian, as they say). 

The appeal of these shows is also in the packaging.  They are half an hour, and ready to view, whereas the internet ends up taking up so much more of my time, with results varying.  There may be a lot to sacrifice in opting for the packaged show, but sometimes a little is better than none, as long as there is a bit of humour and the premise of non-objectivity.

In considering what is newsworthy I find that I subscribe the most to the people that I already know and trust. I find that in the media today there is a proliferation of opinions, and when I hear about or read about the news I am constantly wondering who has changed the story through their viewpoint, and what has been left out. I therefore don't listen to, or watch, the news very often.  I find that the news is also prone to exaggeration of the North American standpoint as just and right.  More so in the states than in Canada, although the truthfulness, and justness of the Canadian media seems enforced as well.  I am therefore skeptical of the sources that I choose to receive news from.  I find that I rely more on, and trust more, asking various people what is going on, reading websites such as yahoo news, and listening to CBC and NPR.  When I get the news through a variety of different sources it becomes obvious what the basic facts are, and what is embellished by each source, as they are all so different.
The idea of the news as a debate forum is one that I find interesting.  In seeking out many different opinions on current events, or in listening to debates on them, one tends to get a variety of viewpoints and ideas that can then be assimilated, and though about without one particular, and glaring lens that is projected by the source.  The ways that the news gets portrayed in both of these formats is a multiplicity of viewpoints that can be useful in formulating one's own opinion.

I like to look at news sources from around the world like the BBC- definitely I am limited to what I can find in English and certainly global news sources will have a bias but I feel like by looking at global new sources as well as local and North American sources, I will be exposed to slightly different biases. American news sometimes gives me a more conservative fundamentalist view point, European news is of course often very Eurocentric. It is easier I think to identify biases in news sources that are located in a different space and situation then I am. Just being able to see the biases in news sources from around the world helps me to be more aware of the news slants that I am presented with by the local media.

This is by no means a perfect system. I don’t really think it is possible to receive any information without bias, even if a fact was presented in an unbiased way it would still be filtered through my own value system and experiences and I think I would still process the information with a bias.
I do think it is important to have some knowledge of what is going on in the world, and there are many ways of receiving that knowledge. As long as one does not just accept everything they read… and today I think most people are critical of the media and aware of biases around them.  I am not sure however, that very many people are self critical.  I know I have biases and I am interested in particular subjects more than others but it is difficult to sift through my own interpretations to reveal the unbiased “truth”.  It becomes more difficult to find the basic facts in a news story if you limit your number of sources or rely only on people who have a very similar view point to you for information, such as friends and family.    

Since I do not watch television, I get my "news" from three sources: the daily free newspapers (24 Hours and Metro), the National Geographic website, and links or newspaper clippings that my friends and family send me. I put the word "news" in quotations because it is a very unstable term. The "news" that I choose to read and discuss is biased based on what I find interesting or worth my time. I will discuss how and why I deal with these three sources.

1. 24 Hours and Metro. These free daily newspapers fall under the sphere of legitimate controversy. I read these purely to fill up my time on the bus on the way to school. I scan the article titles and only read what I think may be interesting. I'm very skeptical about these newspapers and consider them to be somewhere in between a regular newspaper and a gossip magazine. I am aware of how the articles are written and the biases they may convey. For example, I saw an article about a car crash involving a police car (that was at fault) and noticed immediately that the article repeatedly stated that the officer driving was a woman. It only fuels the notion that "women are bad drivers". When I notice things like that, I spark up discussions with my friends about the nuances of news media. I think it is important to encourage others to be aware of the fact that all information in the news is subject to biases.

2. National Geographic. This is more for my own personal enjoyment and entertainment, as National Geographic has a major "green" bias and talks a lot about animals and plants - something that has interested me my whole life. I'd rather read about new species being discovered than about people being shot up in my city. I think National Geographic's news fall under the sphere of deviance for the most part because it is not stuff that you see in the daily news. News about plants and animals is not deemed important to the regular Joe. Using National Geographic as a news source is just my own personal geeky thing that I do and I share interesting tidbits of this information with my other geeky, animal loving friends.

3. Links and clipping from friends and family. These are usually the most interesting tidbits of news that I encounter because they had been deemed important enough to be passed on to me from friends and family. These links and clippings always come with writing from that friend or family member that describes their take on that news information. It can range from a single sentence to a full on 1000 word rant. These links are usually send through email and facebook. I occasionally get them via snail mail (from my granny). I then usually comment back with my own opinions on the matter. Sometimes that is the end of it and sometimes it can entail a lengthy back-and-forth discussion or debate. These topics could come from any of the spheres and are treated in different ways. Sometimes it is simply something that my friend or family member thinks I could find useful (like an article on how to budget as a student). I would consider these types to fall under the the sphere of consensus. Other links sent fall under the sphere of legitimate controversy and are usually accompanied by my friend or family member's disagreement with it and their reasoning behind their disagreement. I consider these occurances of links and discussion a healthy way to be critical about the information in the media.

Overall, I consider television news to be a waste of time because you cannot seek out the "news" that interests you. You are forced to know about what the specific news corporations deem to be important or "newsworthy". Newspapers are slightly better because you can read them on your own time and choose what you read based on your interests. I think the internet is the ultimate "news" source because it allows you to choose your news AND provide public feedback and discussion.