News Blog

As culture has turned away from receiving information from the television and the newspaper into handheld devices, entertainment companies have changed their mode of production to accommodate for the advancements in resources. Technological advancements may not necessarily be the best for American society though, news segments have shortened, become more opinionated, and have become an "optional" selection. We no longer see a large headline in the newspaper encouraging readers to tune in on the discussion and become more aware of events in America, rather today, maybe you google something you want to hear about.

Facebook, and other billion dollar companies have taken advantage of this and have begun to allow news companies to publish top stories and to publicize their stories to consumers who may not even realize an event is occurring. Facebook has created an application called Instant Articles and it is going to launch with the support of nine publishers including the New York Times, BuzzFeed, and NBC News. By implementing this, consumers are directly exposed to news articles that they probably aren't exposed to because they do not browse news websites.

As more consumers become aware of the happenings of the world, people will learn how to act in an independent fashion and decide what they really believe. By having access to sites that are of different narratives, there is more to learn because there isn't a focus on one individual bias. Providing consumers with a variety of sources allows for a more informative session on a topic. By looking at different stories written by multiple people from multiple backgrounds, your understanding of an event or a topic becomes more relevant and accurate. This idea is similar to the idea that every story told is different than the factual story. Tim O'brien has explained this in How to Tell a True War Story. He states that "To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true." This means that because of the perspectives that are reached by people throughout an event, each individual story tells a truth that might not be true to another person. As people learn about other narratives or formats, their conceptual outlook on an event becomes different.

On the surface, an extremely unjust act can be completely downplayed as something that is not really that bad. For example, US History textbooks almost completely skip over the American created Japanese Internment Camps. Government has used censorship to downplay the event. Rather, the textbook would go into depth on a separate event, such as the Holocaust and leaving a paragraph or so to describe the "Japanese Detainment Communities."

News is important for society to improve. Multiple news networks accurately frame a story that is entertaining and informative to display something that isn't known to a group of individuals. News is effective and can play a role on your actions. It is a learning profile that can change a way that you behave or that you think.