Jamie's Blog

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Generations and Informational News transfer



I recently read an interesting commentary by Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech on the difference in information gathering and transmission between those who grew up in a connected world, and those who didn't. It used as a backdrop the way that information got out about the VA Tech shootings. Much of the population was glued to their TV sets and network news feeds waiting on the next bulletin. Even for those who were getting their news on line, most were getting it from standard old media news sites. Old media reporters were writing the standard sound bytes and updates based on what they could find out about what was going on.
The "connected generation" was busy updating and reading blogs, Myspace, and Facebook entries about the tragedy. A Wikipeida entry went up almost immediately, with live updates and new links showing up constantly. Text messages went out from the scene and were posted as fast as they could be. Breaking news and updates got out a lot quicker for the younger generation than it did for the older generation. Furthermore, the news was generated not by professionals sent there to "get the story", but by the people who happened to be on the scene. It wasn't as organized or even always as accurate, but it was fast. The article is a pretty good read and quite interesting when you compare the difference between the ways that news is disseminated amongst the two.
Check it out for your self: Generations

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