Here's to News from Everywhere
Pluralistic sourcing is a term I use to describe the habit of tapping a mix of news sources (foreign, alternative, local/national). While doing research into how people live with the news in everyday life, I talked with many people who felt that relying on the usual suspects (mainstream local/national news source) didn't provide the mix of info they needed. These people were making daily trips to the Guardian website or had particular commentary/activist sites on their bookmarks. (You may recall the various reports on Nielsen/Netratings showing that US folks in search of different slants on the war in Iraq contributed to a huge surge in traffic at the BBC, Guardian, and Australian ABC websites.)
Pluralistic sourcing is not new. People have long supplemented the mainstream fare with ethnic media or special partisan journals, and many have made radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh part of their daily news routine. However, the Internet's is of particular interest because there are some many possibilities out there.
I choose to believe that this wider access is for the good. Sure, people will find some crazy-ass stuff out there, and there will be some who will take this as "truth," but for the most part I think more sources for news stretches perspectives. My assumption could be flawed. I don't believe it is, but I'm going to play along and give some thought to the ideas of Andrew Kohut, a polling guru, whose latest commentary in the New York Times' Week in Review is concerned with the implication for the republic as " increasingly self-segregating" audiences pursue news to fit their world view. He notes that "a plurality of Fox News Channel's audience is now Republican, while a plurality of CNN's audience now consists of Democrats, according to Pew's latest biennial survey of news habits." David Shaw, the Los Angeles Times media critic, takes up a similar discussion this week in a column that argues: " Fox is probably the most biased of all mainstream news outlets. But Fox has been successful - at least in part, I'm convinced - because more and more people want biased news, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. "
Both writers express valid concerns. For many people, good and balance news is news that presents the world as they desire it to be. People gain a sense of affirmation seeing their ideas and their candidates cast in a positive light. There's a song in "The Wiz" called "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News," and that's about how the highly partisan meet the news each day. It's probably always been that way to some degree. My sense is that most people are not so limited and try for a mix of news sources. Heck, I catch Rush Limbaugh a couple of times a week. It's great entertainment. The people who feel they need to read the Guardian to learn what is really going on in Iraq use the mainstream US fare as a point of comparison; they started supplementing their diet with the BBC or Guardian to get a rounder view. And yes, sometimes to find views more in sympathy with their own.
To find complete fault with the desire to see some of one’s view affirmed assumes that there is a more proper view to which they should attend. Pluralistic sourcing at its highest use acknowledges that issues are complex and that there is a need to check out a mix of voices. The groups that see a downside in that scenario are the networks and other big media used to more captive audiences.
7:14:57 PM 
|
