Digital News and Diverse Voices

Monday, April 13th 2009 by Wes FryercloseAuthor: Wes Fryer Name: Wes Fryer
Email: wes@isteconnects.org
Site: http://www.speedofcreativity.org
About: Wesley is an international learning consultant, author, digital storyteller, educator and catalyst for educational reform focused on blended learning, differentiated instruction, and creative engagement. His bio is available on www.wesfryer.com/bio and complete vitae on www.wesfryer.com/vitae.See Authors Posts (74)

Do you like to read newspapers? How would your students respond to this question? Does a person’s age entirely dictate whether or not they enjoy reading newspapers, or are there other factors at play?

The Internet and the social web continue to present BIG challenges for traditional, paper-based news organizations. At the end of February 2009, The Rocky Mountain News (the oldest newspaper in the state of Colorado) printed its final edition. “Multi-million dollar annual losses” were cited as the reason to close up shop after a century and a half of operations. We are living in a transitional period of history, when many older adults remain most comfortable with analog (paper-based) texts while many younger people seem more adept and familiar with digital forms. Clay Shirkey reflected on the HUGE costs of traditional printing, which contrast sharply with the costs connected to digital content distribution, writing last month:

If you want to know why newspapers are in such trouble, the most salient fact is this: Printing presses are terrifically expensive to set up and to run. This bit of economics, normal since Gutenberg, limits competition while creating positive returns to scale for the press owner, a happy pair of economic effects that feed on each other. In a notional town with two perfectly balanced newspapers, one paper would eventually generate some small advantage — a breaking story, a key interview — at which point both advertisers and readers would come to prefer it, however slightly. That paper would in turn find it easier to capture the next dollar of advertising, at lower expense, than the competition. This would increase its dominance, which would further deepen those preferences, repeat chorus. The end result is either geographic or demographic segmentation among papers, or one paper holding a monopoly on the local mainstream audience.

If you do NOT obtain your news from a paper-based newspaper, where do you get your news? Television and radio have been news sources for decades and remain important, but the Internet is becoming a more important source for news for more people every day. In December 2008, PEW researchers reported:

The internet, which emerged this year as a leading source for campaign news, has now surpassed all other media except television as an outlet for national and international news. Currently, 40% say they get most of their news about national and international issues from the internet, up from just 24% in September 2007. For the first time in a Pew survey, more people say they rely mostly on the internet for news than cite newspapers (35%). Television continues to be cited most frequently as a main source for national and international news, at 70%.

One of my favorite sources for international news is the Global Voices Online blog and network, which features bloggers from around the world writing about events in their nation, state, and local community. The affiliated Rising Voices Project:

… aims to help bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the global conversation by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities.

How many important voices from history are excluded, misrepresented, or under-represented in the history textbooks in your school? How many important voices are similarly not heard in the nightly television news aired by your regional affiliate stations? Our current transition period from the dominance of media moguls and conglomerates to a much more dispersed and egalitarian access to the means of publication has drawbacks but it also has many benefits. Chief among these benefits is the greater access we can enjoy today to diverse voices and diverse perspectives on a wide variety of issues.

In his April 12, 2009, post, “Reflecting on my Practice,” Neil Stephenson wrote:

Where do my students find themselves in the history that I guide them through? One of the articles that has shed light on these questions was “Silent Voices, silent stories: Japanese Canadians in Social Studies Textbooks,” by Jennifer Tupper (2002). While Tupper’s words could apply to any marginalized group, [she] writes that, “Japanese Canadians almost always appear in history as victims of discrimination, uprooting, incarceration and dispersal. It is as if the history of the persecuted could be reduced to what their persecutors did. We rarely encounter stories of what the persecuted themselves felt, thought, wished to do, and actually did or failed to do; what meaning they attached to their thoughts and actions.”

Digital texts are changing the traditional landscape of journalism in the world, but I think they are also offering more opportunities than ever before for diverse voices to be shared and heard. While many lament the demise of the Rocky Mountain News and deep cuts in staff at other news agencies, I think we can celebrate the availability of diverse voices and perspectives to which we would not have had access in an earlier age.

As Dr Michael Wesch notes in his class video, “The Machine is Us/ing Us …” digital texts ARE different as well as powerful.

Are you encouraging your students to seek information on current events from diverse, digital sources today? Are you teaching students to write and create using hyperlinked writing? Hyperlinked writing is not only the most powerful form or modality of writing today, it is also the most accessible. The digital divide is certainly real and must be addressed. For those with access, however, digital content offers unprecedented opportunities for learning.

The learning revolution is only beginning. Thankfully, we are not relegated in this auspicious time to the role of spectator. It is our choice whether we will simply watch the information landscape change before our very eyes, or we will also participate in this process of transformation. As we write, link, comment, and connect with and to others, we can gain a better understanding of the opportunities as well as pitfalls latent in this dynamic learning landscape.

Image credits:

• Homepage header image:  riklomas
• Top newspaper reader image: Well Tea
• PEW research

Similar Posts:

• Colorado students blog inauguration experiences
• CourseCasting Pre-AP Math in Oklahoma
• Skype and Twitter going more mainstream
• Blogging the Conference: We’ve come a long way in 3 years!
• Libraries of the future