News On the Internet? For Breakfast?

            Well, how do you think my classmates got the news? THE INTERNET! Sites like Yahoo, Google News, New York Times, CNN, StumbleUpon, and not surprisingly Facebook came up. Mostly people decided to read articles based on if the headline looked interesting or not. One could say this is dangerous. A pessimist would say that my classmates might get interesting mixed up with entertaining at times, but I want to think positive.  It actually seems as if we are not becoming increasingly subjective pertaining to news awareness, but rather the internet is yielding a greater opportunity to be objectively opinioned (if that’s even possible). One great example of the more rounded view that the internet gives us is the news searching ability of StumbleUpon. On this site, the visitor can “stumble” through multiple news articles of varying viewpoints. So, instead of reading mass amount of articles by one organization that follows one decree, we are enabled to broaden our perspective through the varying ideas of others. Even Facebook, which celebrates subjectivity and individualism is a haven for the development of an open mind. My classmates reminisced on their use of Facebook statuses to learn about the events and issues in the world. Without the social networks we have now, there was a minimal opportunity for a news savvy person to express their beliefs on the matters they have been exposed to. Next to one status  could stand a completely conflicting concept on the current events. And that, my friends, is the internet at its best: there are so many ideas living in one source that contrast in such definitive ways, the only choice the audience has is to see these ideas as different puzzle pieces fitting together to make one bigger picture.

and this is what I listened to when writing this blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6F-36G9avk&feature=related