This week the lecture was all about the web, specifically Web 3.0 or 'Semantic Web.' This new era of internet use begins where the social networking revolution left off, revolving around the idea of 'being mobile.' Today I take the fact that I carry the web around in my pocket for granted. As soon as I had a full time job I bought myself an IPhone and now I reckon I would be lost without it.
By using meta tagging, geo tagging and filtering information from social network profiles, advertising agencies and media broadcasters are able to 'hyperlocalise' advertising and news content to an individual. While I can recognise the positives in this venture, one rather large negative can't escape me. I worry that if people are only tuning in to news stories that either directly relates or interests them, society's level of general knowledge and social awareness would drop considerably. This kind of ignorance could become very dangerous.
Jelly Bellies
Given out in class but then taken away...
I feel giving up free online news would be even more difficult to swallow.
A more pressing challenge for online news is, of course, the profit margin. As publications begin at looking to put up 'Paywalls' so that the public must pay to receive their news online as they would in print. I do believe that a subscription model is needed, something that will be very hard to impose retrospectively. The demonstration of how a person perceives to be entitled to something regardless of the fact they were given it for free in the lecture was both tasty (the jelly beans were delicious) and enlightening. I would hate to have the future and integrity of investigative journalism jeopardised because the general public demands 'free' news.
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