I think it will because it is tangible. You can touch and feel print so it seems more real. A newspaper can be held and saved and treasured.

 If there was no newspaper how could people cut out clippings to save and remember important moment in there lives? I guess you could print it off of the web, but it wouldn’t have that same affect. It wouldn’t seem as important if you just printed it off.

How many kids sit down and go through boxes of newspaper clippings and old pictures with grandparents and parents? I know I do. With out print, how can you share those moments with family and friends?

The web is just too impersonal. It doesn’t have the same affect as sitting and reading the Sunday paper. Maybe I am just way to old school, but I need that thing in my hands for it to feel real. It’s like news isn’t real if I am just reading it on the web. It seems like the sources just are not legitimate if it is not in print.

I hope print is still alive. It’s the only tangible thing we can save to share with future generations. Of course you can Google whatever you want to talk about and find it, but I would miss those moments sitting with my grandma looking at old newspaper clippings.

There are also so many manufacturers that sell there products online. It’s like there is no need for stores anymore. Everything is on the internet and it’s usually cheaper on the internet. Buying things online cuts out the middle man, so things are not marked up as much. This creates a problem for retail businesses.

With being able to find anything and everything on the internet you run into problems like valid sources. It’s a problem with the internet that has been beat to death, but it is valid. With searching on the internet and especially buying stuff on the internet you have to be careful. People who use the internet for everything should know the components of a valid source.

A lot of the source problems would be solved if it was more common knowledge what to look for in a valid source like authority, objectivity, currency, accuracy, content and organization. However many people are to trusting of what on the internet. It seems like if it’s on the web it must be true.

There is so much on the internet that whenever you do a search it’s a complete information overload. There is so much stuff that comes up, some relevant, some not, that take forever to really find anything. Its frustrating!! 

Tim Berners-Lee – “If it isn’t on the Web, it doesn’t exist.” This quote is scary in its truth. It seems everything you could ever possibly wan is on the web. When researching all you have to do is “Google” a subject and you get more information than you could possibly want.

There are also so many manufacturers that sell there products online. It’s like there is no need for stores anymore. Everything is on the internet and it’s usually cheaper on the internet. Buying things online cuts out the middle man, so things are not marked up as much. This creates a problem for retail businesses.

With being able to find anything and everything on the internet you run into problems like valid sources. It’s a problem with the internet that has been beat to death, but it is valid. With searching on the internet and especially buying stuff on the internet you have to be careful. People who use the internet for everything should know the components of a valid source.

A lot of the source problems would be solved if it was more common knowledge what to look for in a valid source like authority, objectivity, currency, accuracy, content and organization. However many people are to trusting of what on the internet. It seems like if it’s on the web it must be true.

There is so much on the internet that whenever you do a search it’s a complete information overload. There is so much stuff that comes up, some relevant, some not, that take forever to really find anything. Its frustrating!!

            I wouldn’t classify myself as a web un-savvy person because I can fumble my way through pretty much anything and figure it out. Which I am grateful for because in today’s world you have to have some web skills it seems.

            Everything is on the web it seems and if you have some web skills it puts you in a better position for jobs and careers. It’s scary, especially for people like me who are not particularly good with technology and the web. However, I think having web skills is very important and anyone web un-savvy should try and learn basic skills.

            Learning web skills is almost essential to function in society now. Credit cards do online billing statements and make payments online. Banks have it where you can check your balance and make transactions online. You can do anything online! It is definitely in everyone’s best interest to learn how to use the web.

    Traditional media should take lessons from the new technology and social changes brought on from the web. New technology has allowed people to form communities online, for example Facebook and Myspace. People want to read about things targeted directly to them. Traditional media needs to learn how to take advantage of online communities to target its viewers and readers.

 To keep its audiences and gain new members to its audience, traditional media needs to change its image. So many stories have been shown to be false, that viewers don’t trust traditional media. In my opinion, if traditional media’s reputation was better more people would listen and read it.

           Neo-Luddites would appreciate traditional media being more honest and trustworthy because they do not trust technology. They won’t go find news on the web because they are somewhat technophobic. So having a newspaper they trust to report honestly would be satisfying for them.

 The sticks-and-bricks community would probably increase their use of traditional media if they felt it was more trustworthy. Why buy a newspaper and read an article if you find out it was false from bad reporting and editing? It would feel like a waste of money and people probably won’t buy that paper again, if it’s a serious enough mistake. Little errors are acceptable, but stuff like George Bush’s military record that turned out to be completely false loses peoples trust.

The people who fall in the digital divide that do not have access to high speed internet would also benefit from traditional media being more honest. They rely solely on traditional media, because they do not have access to high speed internet to go find information on the internet.

Society really only knows about what is published in a form of media whether it be a newspaper, magazine, broadcast or on the web. With out journalists to go find out information and writing about important things such as political scandals, natural disasters, war etc. how would we know what’s going on? Really we wouldn’t. And not knowing about it would keep a lot of stuff from going down in history such as Watergate scandal, elections, food illness outbreaks and a hole host of other stuff.

I read an article by Melinda Burns called Digital Disappearance. The article brought up an interesting point about how the web is affecting journalism. If an article publishes to the web offends someone they complain and the article can be removed. This jeopardizes journalisms role in recording history because you can just delete articles and it’s lost. Granted most of the articles are published in a newspaper but in 10, 20 or 30 years newspapers could be extinct. Repressive regimes could control what history says instead recording the facts. Far fetched, but you never know. It could happen.

From that I started thinking does a community have consist of people that live in a common area? Well I don’t think it does. I think a community can just be people who have a common interest whether they live in the same area or not.

For example, I am involved in rodeo. We are a group of people who don’t live anywhere near each other but are brought together by a common interest for spring, summer and fall. Pretty much everyone in rodeo knows each other and all of us help each other out. People share horses, push each others calves, help read scores, pull bull ropes, cinch up broncs’ and a hole long list of stuff. We also for travel groups where we travel to rodeos together to cut down on fuel costs and its more fun.

The lyrics of this song “Headin to the Rodeo” By Colby Yates talks about how rodeo people help each other out. Listen from 1:38 to 2:36.

Helping each other, like the people in rodeo do, and having a common interest is the most important part of a community. In a demographic community you can live in a suburban area with lots of people around you and really not know anyone. Is that really a community? Your not really communicating you are just stuck in the same area.

Its not that I think that community isn’t defined by a demographic area. It definitely can be, but I don’t think it’s limited to that. A community of people with nothing in common but their place of residence is not a community to me. To be a community members have to communicate, help each other and share a common interest.

I agree with Andrew Keen in that information should come from people who are experts in a subject. Traditional media does a much better job researching and finding the truth than a bunch of random people editing something to make it say what they want.

 David Weinberger’s approach to finding truth through conversation does not set well with me. People can talk about something until they are blue in the face and never arrive at a truthful conclusion. It ends up being time wasted. In my experience in the horse world it happens quite often. People ask my opinion so I tell them then they argue with me. We go back and forth for awhile and in the end we’ve gotten no where.

We need experts and people well educated in certain subjects to do studies and publish the results. Then people can take or leave the results on their own and even debate the results to make them selves feel included. However, I don’t feel everyone should contribute to finding a one truth. Stick to what you know.

All in all I agree with Andrew Keens position on new media. There is way too much false information on the web from sites like Blogs and Wikipedia. Traditional media should be treasured because it is more reliable by its sources and research.