Will consumer creaded media content increase media literacy? My ramblings...

This Friday's The Show got my gears turning all weekend and I haven’t quite been able to get them to stop. I haven’t quite answered the questions that have come out of this discussion that I’ve been having with myself, but let's see where this takes me...

(rant)

It is undeniable that blogs and internet culture are changing not only in how news is spread, but also in the voice that is used to tell it (not to mention the voices speaking back at the author in story comments).

Paul Grabowitz spoke with Steve Garfield about how consumer created news should be posted on websites right up top along with traditional news content. How easily will the average reader be able to distinguish unbiased, sufficiently researched and balanced news coverage of a story from the subjective ideas communicated through a blog on the same subject? Will blog posts ever be able to be completely integrated into traditional news content without a distinct division that editorial and advertising has requiered?

As the youth Internet culture becomes more and more accustomed to learning about the world around them through My Space and their friend's blogs, will they begin to distrust the traditional media that so distantly resembles the media channels that they are so used to (even more than the rest of society already does)?

My experience conducting journalistic interviews and reporting stories for print publications has certainly changed the way that I interpret news content (as well a fostered a strong distain of 90% of local news programming). Will the Internet culture's access to blogging have any significant affect on they way they interpret news content? (I sure hope that www.nytimes.com never resembles a My Space page... ugh).

The fact that HTML coding and website design were once powerful skills that separated internet media producers from consumers but now it has even begun to integrate into IM slang to the point where (/rant) may some day be as common as ROFL and WTF, is pretty wild.

Sure Dell's blog sucks, but at least they are communicating in a medium where we can call them out on it publicly. THAT is cool.

The average man’s ability to create his own media content will hopefully increase his media literacy, changing the way the entire internet culture consumes and interprets the news media. And in any case, media literacy is good for everyone. The news media may be the fourth estate, but it is only as powerful as the public's ability to interpret and formulate their own educated opinions based on the content.

(/rant)

I appologize for the completely random chain of ideas, but I was in the mood to publish all ideas that have been fueling my brain for the past few days in more of a mental regurgitation than anything else. I hope I didn't give anyone a headache. I will now return to my regularly scheduled and fully thought out posts.


Technorati Tags: Media Literacy, Ze Frank