I think OWS very broadly aimed to accomplish two things: they wanted to bring about immediate and drastic social change to the country (though the end goal was everything from an anti-capitalist state to an anarcho-capitalist state), and they wanted to do this through the creation of a parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics. I think they failed on both accounts.
The first point is going to be contentious since there was such a broad spectrum of opinion about OWS' goals. Some protesters were focused on individual legislation demands while others opposed even making specific demands. But the general tone I got from interviews and /r/occupywallstreet though was that most protesters wanted a revolution of some kind, not just steady progress. Obviously this never came about. The consolation prize was introducing "income inequality" and "the 1%" memes into the national consciousness, but when compared to the actual legislative impact of the Tea Party (no new taxes ever, focus solely on deficit reduction through spending cuts rather than stimulus spending), I think this is a pretty weak legacy.
The failure of their new parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics was the biggest problem of OWS. The whole idea behind the General Assembly structure, up twinkles, and no formal leadership was that these alternate forms of democracy were legitimate alternatives to our current representative system. They were supposed to show that a grassroots movement didn't need to attach itself to a political party to bring about change. Instead they proved the opposite. Once again, compare this to the Tea Party movement. They focused their outrage towards working within the system, obtaining House seats, and actually came close to shutting down the government to protest their grievances.
The thing that kills me is that OWS is a response to very real problems about skyrocketing income inequality since the early 80s and the insanely corrupt and flat out dangerous practices of investment banks. If OWS primarily rallied around getting "Occupist" Representatives elected rather than fighting for city camping space, they could have had a huge impact this November. But instead we're judging success by the amount of "awareness" raised by this huge outpouring of effort.
frogurt on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
How can you claim to be "very computer savvy" and then in the same sentence claim that you don't understand social media.
I understand that you mean on a technical level, but perhaps it's time to enter the 21st century.
I mean, you're basically a media dinosaur even if you aren't that old. No one is saying social media should be your only source (at least they shouldn't be if they don't want to be geese), but the only thing you have to lose by expanding your sources is your limited world view.
The accountability is that if a blogger turns out to be full of crap people will stop reading and taking them seriously. You should be consuming lots of different sources and using Critical Thinking Skills to get to the truth.
I think OWS very broadly aimed to accomplish two things: they wanted to bring about immediate and drastic social change to the country (though the end goal was everything from an anti-capitalist state to an anarcho-capitalist state), and they wanted to do this through the creation of a parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics. I think they failed on both accounts.
The first point is going to be contentious since there was such a broad spectrum of opinion about OWS' goals. Some protesters were focused on individual legislation demands while others opposed even making specific demands. The general tone I got from interviews and /r/occupywallstreet though was that most protesters wanted a revolution of some kind, not just steady progress. Obviously this never came about. The consolation prize was introducing "income inequality" and "the 1%" memes into the national consciousness, but when compared to the actual legislative impact of the Tea Party (no new taxes ever, focus solely on deficit reduction through spending cuts rather than stimulus spending), I think this is a pretty weak legacy.
The failure of their new parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics was the biggest problem of OWS. The whole idea behind the General Assembly structure, up twinkles, and no formal leadership was that these alternate forms of democracy were legitimate alternatives to our current representative system. They were supposed to show that a grassroots movement didn't need to attach itself to a political party to bring about change. Instead they proved the opposite. Once again, compare this to the Tea Party movement. They focused their outrage towards working within the system, obtaining House seats, and actual came close to shutting down the government to protest their grievances.
The thing that kills me is that OWS is a response to very real problems about skyrocketing income inequality since the early 80s and the insanely corrupt and flat out dangerous practices of investment banks. If OWS primarily rallied around getting "Occupist" Representatives elected rather than fighting for city camping space, they could have had a huge impact this November. But instead we're judging success by the amount of "awareness" raised by this huge outpouring of effort.
Pretty much. My biggest fear, right from the start when everyone was just ignoring OWS, was that like many leftist movements, it would be infested with anarchist/anti-government/marxist/leninist/communist/etc types. The kind of people who are either completely anti-orginization or anti-the-whole-political-system. And those people doom you to failure if you don't get them in line.
Even if you want to overthrow the whole system, you can't do it all at once. People generally like the system. You've got to work within it. And that's what we've learned here.
OWS was so focused on it's internal orginizational goals, it forgot to do anything about it's political goals.
Yeah, it boggles my mind that the right wing has embraced a lot of the conservative counterparts to the anarchists/marxists
The "THE GOVERNMENT IS A CANCER" people are themselves a cancer to your political party, long term. Sooner or later people expect you to actually govern, and while they've been good at deflecting their lack of governing onto Obama, best case scenario for them is they win the white house and then get ousted a few years later
Cable news ratings continue to drop like the Hindenburg. This is because they no longer even pretend to humor their opponents, and have gotten so good at filtering troublesome people out that there's no longer even the drama of listening to some doomed soul and realizing that, contrary to what JVM/NG/RG/VP says, they're not coming back to her after the break.
Stuff like [url="newsmotion.org/betatest[/url] and FSTV exists to create an information shift and provide a truly alternative media, similar to public access in the sixties and seventies.
(Newsmotion needed an initial celeb endorsement and launched without doing the sensible thing and padding itself out with other people's stories. It also forgot to roll it's fucking beta out or have something on the front page saying that it exists and that new stories are being published on it, so... heh. :birthpangs:)
When Occupy got kicked out of Eugene Oregon, which has a near-infinite well of support for progressive movements, I can't help but think that something was obviously wrong with the movement's implementation/message.
I think OWS very broadly aimed to accomplish two things: they wanted to bring about immediate and drastic social change to the country (though the end goal was everything from an anti-capitalist state to an anarcho-capitalist state), and they wanted to do this through the creation of a parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics. I think they failed on both accounts.
The first point is going to be contentious since there was such a broad spectrum of opinion about OWS' goals. Some protesters were focused on individual legislation demands while others opposed even making specific demands. The general tone I got from interviews and /r/occupywallstreet though was that most protesters wanted a revolution of some kind, not just steady progress. Obviously this never came about. The consolation prize was introducing "income inequality" and "the 1%" memes into the national consciousness, but when compared to the actual legislative impact of the Tea Party (no new taxes ever, focus solely on deficit reduction through spending cuts rather than stimulus spending), I think this is a pretty weak legacy.
The failure of their new parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics was the biggest problem of OWS. The whole idea behind the General Assembly structure, up twinkles, and no formal leadership was that these alternate forms of democracy were legitimate alternatives to our current representative system. They were supposed to show that a grassroots movement didn't need to attach itself to a political party to bring about change. Instead they proved the opposite. Once again, compare this to the Tea Party movement. They focused their outrage towards working within the system, obtaining House seats, and actually came close to shutting down the government to protest their grievances.
The thing that kills me is that OWS is a response to very real problems about skyrocketing income inequality since the early 80s and the insanely corrupt and flat out dangerous practices of investment banks. If OWS primarily rallied around getting "Occupist" Representatives elected rather than fighting for city camping space, they could have had a huge impact this November. But instead we're judging success by the amount of "awareness" raised by this huge outpouring of effort.
I think this is a fair assessment. Getting "Occupist" reps elected was something I was pushing for within our own elections from the local on up and trying to deal with the "anti-the-whole-establishment" people goes nowhere but in fighting pretty that much troll bullhorns from within the movement and towards it, over important issues of wealth disparity and its impact on healthy democracy, our enviroment, and our economy. Anything that isn't helping push back Feudal System 2.0 so we have a society that gives a shit about each other is infuriating to me.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
... Like how CNN and Fox News both announced that Obamacare had been repealed? (Hell, is Fox News ever right?) Find that accountability!!!
... Like how CNN and Fox News both announced that Obamacare had been repealed? (Hell, is Fox News ever right?) Find that accountability!!!
They both receieved massive amounts of shit for that though. So much so that it became its own mini-story. Now compare that to the great number of alternative press sites and social media "reporting" sites like reddit who predicted full blown martial law due to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
CNN and Fox News were wrong for a few minutes about a USSC decision and were called out for it. Alternative and social news outlets predicted immediate, full-blown tyrany and no one blinked an eye.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
... Like how CNN and Fox News both announced that Obamacare had been repealed? (Hell, is Fox News ever right?) Find that accountability!!!
They both receieved massive amounts of shit for that though. So much so that it became its own mini-story. Now compare that to the great number of alternative press sites and social media "reporting" sites like reddit who predicted full blown martial law due to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
CNN and Fox News were wrong for a few minutes and were called out for it. Alternative and social news outlets predicted immediate, full-blown tyrany and no one blinked an eye.
Were people taking that shit seriously?
Like I said, you shouldn't make social media and blogs your only source of news. But to ignore them completely is pretty goosteriffic.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
How can you claim to be "very computer savvy" and then in the same sentence claim that you don't understand social media.
I understand that you mean on a technical level, but perhaps it's time to enter the 21st century.
I mean, you're basically a media dinosaur even if you aren't that old. No one is saying social media should be your only source (at least they shouldn't be if they don't want to be geese), but the only thing you have to lose by expanding your sources is your limited world view.
The accountability is that if a blogger turns out to be full of crap people will stop reading and taking them seriously. You should be consuming lots of different sources and using Critical Thinking Skills to get to the truth.
"Someone stops reading your blog" means nothing, since they can just start a new blog with a new name.
My issue is that there is so much being put out there by so many amateurs, and, like Wikipedia, I have no way to know if a single word is true. I prefer to wait for a professional to "curate" things for me and let me know what is worth paying attention to, without having to expend a lot of time searching for information and then looking for other information to corroborate everything I am reading. I understand and agree that this would be the better approach, but it is simply too time consuming. This is the same reason that I almost never watch amateur videos on the Internet. I am willing to accept that I may miss out on some great things on YouTube rather than spend tons of time weeding through the mud for the diamonds.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
How can you claim to be "very computer savvy" and then in the same sentence claim that you don't understand social media.
I understand that you mean on a technical level, but perhaps it's time to enter the 21st century.
I mean, you're basically a media dinosaur even if you aren't that old. No one is saying social media should be your only source (at least they shouldn't be if they don't want to be geese), but the only thing you have to lose by expanding your sources is your limited world view.
The accountability is that if a blogger turns out to be full of crap people will stop reading and taking them seriously. You should be consuming lots of different sources and using Critical Thinking Skills to get to the truth.
"Someone stops reading your blog" means nothing, since they can just start a new blog with a new name.
My issue is that there is so much being put out there by so many amateurs, and, like Wikipedia, I have no way to know if a single word is true. I prefer to wait for a professional to "curate" things for me and let me know what is worth paying attention to, without having to expend a lot of time searching for information and then looking for other information to corroborate everything I am reading. I understand and agree that this would be the better approach, but it is simply too time consuming. This is the same reason that I almost never watch amateur videos on the Internet. I am willing to accept that I may miss out on some great things on YouTube rather than spend tons of time weeding through the mud for the diamonds.
There are blogs and there are blogs.
I'm not saying go on and read any idiots blog, but there are a lot of respectable outlets out there. Reading more than "the nation's paper of record" which, by the way, the NYT can call itself that all it wants it gets less and less true everyday will only broaden your understanding of issues.
The internet is a tool, use it for god's sake.
Until you do, be prepared to be less informed than other people.
Google trends are fairly reliable as far as "new media" is concerned. Since its just a collection of search engine stats, if I am not mistaken. Can't really game that in any significant way.
Never trust Wikipedia on controversial issues.
Avoid Facebook as a source of any news.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Serious as a heart attack. Check the link. The reddit consensus across the political spectrum was that the mainstream media was either being outright censored or was somehow complicit with the plans to institute a police state via NDAA. So blogs
I'm not saying go on and read any idiots blog, but there are a lot of respectable outlets out there. Reading more than "the nation's paper of record" which, by the way, the NYT can call itself that all it wants it gets less and less true everyday will only broaden your understanding of issues.
I'm becoming more and more wary of the vast majority of non-MSM-affiliated blogs. I've wasted more time than anyone ever should on /r/politics reading shitty upvoted fearmongering blog entries. The signal-to-shrill-noise ratio is far too low. Either it's some reiteration of "DEMOCRACY IS DEAD" , or it's some dumb niche topic that only the internet is dumb enough to rally around. I know more about the NDAA and the details of Ron Paul's fucking primary campaign than is healthy.
I've made a conscious effort to read more of the NYT in place of the usual /r/politics gruel, and I know I'm more informed because of it. All the good blogs I subscribe to (Krugman's, Ezra Klein's, 538) are all attached to some newspaper. If I had to pick a sane/productive ratio of MSM-affiliated content to independent blog content, I'd say it's at least 4:1.
Google trends are fairly reliable as far as "new media" is concerned. Since its just a collection of search engine stats, if I am not mistaken. Can't really game that in any significant way. It's not very useful though, and it isn't new media at all.
Never trust Wikipedia to give a conservative slant on controversial issues; it's very accurate.
It's a fucking shame really. The groupthink had its head so far up its own ass, that it got to the point where the only thing they all could agree on is:
1 camping is cool (especially when people are filming it, There's free gourmet food, and you're, like, in the middle of something big, man)
2 fuck the police
3 income inequality is bad
Beyond that, those chucklefucks couldn't agree on Pizza toppings, but demanded sparkly fingered unanimity. OWS became a textbook example of why having leadership isn't necessarily a bad thing.
This. The OWS movement never bothered about organizing themselves. Nor did they try to create a coherent message.
Frankly, its view of politics was naive. They were the Quincy Adams to reality's Andrew Jackson.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Serious as a heart attack. Check the link. The reddit consensus across the political spectrum was that the mainstream media was either being outright censored or was somehow complicit with the plans to institute a police state via NDAA. So blogs
I'm not saying go on and read any idiots blog, but there are a lot of respectable outlets out there. Reading more than "the nation's paper of record" which, by the way, the NYT can call itself that all it wants it gets less and less true everyday will only broaden your understanding of issues.
I'm becoming more and more wary of the vast majority of non-MSM-affiliated blogs. I've wasted more time than anyone ever should on /r/politics reading shitty upvoted fearmongering blog entries. The signal-to-shrill-noise ratio is far too low. Either it's some reiteration of "DEMOCRACY IS DEAD" , or it's some dumb niche topic that only the internet is dumb enough to rally around. I know more about the NDAA and the details of Ron Paul's fucking primary campaign than is healthy.
I've made a conscious effort to read more of the NYT in place of the usual /r/politics gruel, and I know I'm more informed because of it. All the good blogs I subscribe to (Krugman's, Ezra Klein's, 538) are all attached to some newspaper. If I had to pick a sane/productive ratio of MSM-affiliated content to independent blog content, I'd say it's at least 4:1.
Imma point out here I have never, nor will I ever, endorsed reddit as a source of news.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
The point is not for you to get news from social media (although MSM is increasingly relying on user-generated content). The point is that viewing the trends on these kinds of sites gives a better impression of what an increasingly-large segment of the population views as legitimately important, regardless of what the 'established media' has deemed important.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
On social/new media as a news source: as with any media, it is important to consider the source. Whether the source is pseudonymous or affiliated with an established media or political entity (ie has some reputation for credibility) or anonymous, firsthand information can be incredibly powerful. Go back and read the Iran election threads; all we had was Twitter and cellphone video during most of the real action, because CNN couldn't be assed to get reporters on the ground until after the weekend.
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
They're not difficult to understand, it's not rocket science. Look around some blogs on their services and you'll get an idea about how they work.
I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
Have you met Fox News? Or CNN?
I'm not sure you even understand mainstream media.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
The beauty of the Internet - if you know how to work it - is that you can research pretty much any claim you come across to find out if it is valid. If you swallow some bullshit in the 21st century because you get your news from Glen Beck, then it's all on you.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
The point is not for you to get news from social media (although MSM is increasingly relying on user-generated content). The point is that viewing the trends on these kinds of sites gives a better impression of what an increasingly-large segment of the population views as legitimately important, regardless of what the 'established media' has deemed important.
NYTimes.com provides this sort of information (most read and most emailed article lists).
Like I have said a few times, I agree that looking at more would be the ideal, but it would also take a lot of time. I prefer to let sources I trust filter and curate the stories, even if it mean I miss some stories or perspectives, or if I don't see some stories until after the MSM has had a chance to turn to it and let it develop. Incidentally, I don't watch tv news at all. I only trust major newspapers for the most part.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
The point is not for you to get news from social media (although MSM is increasingly relying on user-generated content). The point is that viewing the trends on these kinds of sites gives a better impression of what an increasingly-large segment of the population views as legitimately important, regardless of what the 'established media' has deemed important.
NYTimes.com provides this sort of information (most read and most emailed article lists).
Like I have said a few times, I agree that looking at more would be the ideal, but it would also take a lot of time. I prefer to let sources I trust filter and curate the stories, even if it mean I miss some stories or perspectives, or if I don't see some stories until after the MSM has had a chance to turn to it and let it develop. Incidentally, I don't watch tv news at all. I only trust major newspapers for the most part.
Well then don't be surprised when you enter conversations with people who are more informed and they don't take your "but I never heard of this!" to heart.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not sure I follow you. Obama has this in the bag. Voting is an important contribution, but so is what OWS has done.
The paradigm shift toward decentralized media and information sharing means that the ripple effect caused by OWS raising awareness will be less able to be mitigated by the corporate news narrative. People who otherwise would not have seen the writing on the wall are now viewing things in terms of a ruling class and a subjugated working class, and that's a BFD!
This confuses me. I googled OWS many times during its heyday to see what was happening, and most of the articles that weren't from the mainstream news outlets were from OWS itself (untrustworthy) or super partisan sites like Huffington Pist, which are only persuassivevto people who have already drunk the koolaid. Where is this information shift?
I'm referring to a more granular distribution; to get an accurate picture you'd have to be looking at places like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This is kind of interesting, though.
Notice that although OWS coverage in the media has practically vanished, interest in income inequality is still going strong.
I'm not that old, am very computer savvy (I even had my own software startup) and I don't understand twitter, tumbler, four square or other social media like that, and I don't see why I should trust anything I read on them or anything else that is user generated. I trust the established media because I know who they are, and they have reputations to maintain and something to lose by being wrong. If some guy is wrong on twitter, where is the accountability?
The point is not for you to get news from social media (although MSM is increasingly relying on user-generated content). The point is that viewing the trends on these kinds of sites gives a better impression of what an increasingly-large segment of the population views as legitimately important, regardless of what the 'established media' has deemed important.
NYTimes.com provides this sort of information (most read and most emailed article lists).
Like I have said a few times, I agree that looking at more would be the ideal, but it would also take a lot of time. I prefer to let sources I trust filter and curate the stories, even if it mean I miss some stories or perspectives, or if I don't see some stories until after the MSM has had a chance to turn to it and let it develop. Incidentally, I don't watch tv news at all. I only trust major newspapers for the most part.
Well then don't be surprised when you enter conversations with people who are more informed and they don't take your "but I never heard of this!" to heart.
The entire point I was trying to get across was that the MSM did not portray OWS the way that people here say it was in reality, but that for most people, the reality doesn't matter, because they never saw or hears about anything but what the MSM showed them.
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
The beauty of the Internet - if you know how to work it - is that you can research pretty much any claim you come across to find out if it is valid. If you swallow some bullshit in the 21st century because you get your news from Glen Beck, then it's all on you.
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
So, it's like journalism.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
So, it's like journalism.
There is an expectation that a professional journalist did the neccessary legwork to ensure their story is true. Even something trivial, like making sure quotes are accurate. If I read something on a blog, I feel like I have no reason to believe it isn't made up, and if the only other sources that back this blog up are other blogs, I don't know if they are all aware of a fact, or just copying the first blog, which may have itself been false. The only way I can be confident is to verify the information with a professional news source, but then why waste time looking at the blogs in the first place?
Edit: this isn't to say I read no blogs. I read blogs affiliated with major newspapers, and a few others in niche areas (Engadget, abovethelaw) where the MSM doesn't cover the topics, or doesn't cover them as well. But when it comes to "real" news, I'd rather leave it to the professionals. This isn't to say there may not be really good news blogs that are trustworthy, but again, it just takes more time than I am willing to devote to find them, when I feel like I am getting by just find with newspaper sites.
I made a similar post in the presidential thread, but since it concerns the OWS I am restating it here:
OWS was a fairly amazing achievement. Major demonstrations, ongoing round the clock for weeks, in over dozen major cities, without outside financial backing, organisation and support. That is a very rare feat. One unsurpassed in the last 40 years at least.
In terms of passion and commitment it far outstriped the TEA party, with its astroturfed support and major media(fox news) foghorn.
Showing up to a rally in a tricorn hat < showing up and staying for several weeks(months really).
This also illustrates why the OWS failed. The TEA party had organisation that could force their ideas onto the ballots and shift the political landscape towards it. If someone had been able to harness the OWS into a viable political movement, it would have been a game-changer. Without any clear leadership and goals, the most passionate lose focus and fail.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
So, it's like journalism.
There is an expectation that a professional journalist did the neccessary legwork to ensure their story is true. Even something trivial, like making sure quotes are accurate. If I read something on a blog, I feel like I have no reason to believe it isn't made up, and if the only other sources that back this blog up are other blogs, I don't know if they are all aware of a fact, or just copying the first blog, which may have itself been false. The only way I can be confident is to verify the information with a professional news source, but then why waste time looking at the blogs in the first place?
Edit: this isn't to say I read no blogs. I read blogs affiliated with major newspapers, and a few others in niche areas (Engadget, abovethelaw) where the MSM doesn't cover the topics, or doesn't cover them as well. But when it comes to "real" news, I'd rather leave it to the professionals. This isn't to say there may not be really good news blogs that are trustworthy, but again, it just takes more time than I am willing to devote to find them, when I feel like I am getting by just find with newspaper sites.
This was more likely to be true historically, I want to say. Although in fairness you specifically mentioned newspapers as opposed to the 24-hour TV news infotainment clusterfuck that we're all suffering from.
Anyway, my point was not that social media is a replacement for journalism - we need actual journalists, and we're going to have to figure out a way to incentivize that legwork now that traditional paid media outlets are largely marginalized and unprofitable. My point was that looking at social media gives a barometer of the impact of OWS - a shift in the actual discussion as opposed to the one that is taking place among the polite conversation of approved subjects and narratives that is the MSM.
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
So, it's like journalism.
There is an expectation that a professional journalist did the neccessary legwork to ensure their story is true. Even something trivial, like making sure quotes are accurate. If I read something on a blog, I feel like I have no reason to believe it isn't made up, and if the only other sources that back this blog up are other blogs, I don't know if they are all aware of a fact, or just copying the first blog, which may have itself been false. The only way I can be confident is to verify the information with a professional news source, but then why waste time looking at the blogs in the first place?
Edit: this isn't to say I read no blogs. I read blogs affiliated with major newspapers, and a few others in niche areas (Engadget, abovethelaw) where the MSM doesn't cover the topics, or doesn't cover them as well. But when it comes to "real" news, I'd rather leave it to the professionals. This isn't to say there may not be really good news blogs that are trustworthy, but again, it just takes more time than I am willing to devote to find them, when I feel like I am getting by just find with newspaper sites.
It also kinda depends on what sort of news you are looking for. Honestly,if you want quality science reporting, mainstream media outlets are pretty much actually bad at reporting. Whereas, is you look at blogs you can find some very detailed, accurate and informative content, frequently reported by folks who actually understand what they are talking about. Given that there is something like a community of smart folks going around reading them, you get something like peer review, mainstream stuff you really don't have anyone fact checking the has an understanding of the material.
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
So, it's like journalism.
There is an expectation that a professional journalist did the neccessary legwork to ensure their story is true. Even something trivial, like making sure quotes are accurate. If I read something on a blog, I feel like I have no reason to believe it isn't made up, and if the only other sources that back this blog up are other blogs, I don't know if they are all aware of a fact, or just copying the first blog, which may have itself been false. The only way I can be confident is to verify the information with a professional news source, but then why waste time looking at the blogs in the first place?
Edit: this isn't to say I read no blogs. I read blogs affiliated with major newspapers, and a few others in niche areas (Engadget, abovethelaw) where the MSM doesn't cover the topics, or doesn't cover them as well. But when it comes to "real" news, I'd rather leave it to the professionals. This isn't to say there may not be really good news blogs that are trustworthy, but again, it just takes more time than I am willing to devote to find them, when I feel like I am getting by just find with newspaper sites.
This was more likely to be true historically, I want to say. Although in fairness you specifically mentioned newspapers as opposed to the 24-hour TV news infotainment clusterfuck that we're all suffering from.
Anyway, my point was not that social media is a replacement for journalism - we need actual journalists, and we're going to have to figure out a way to incentivize that legwork now that traditional paid media outlets are largely marginalized and unprofitable. My point was that looking at social media gives a barometer of the impact of OWS - a shift in the actual discussion as opposed to the one that is taking place among the polite conversation of approved subjects and narratives that is the MSM.
I regard the tv news as maybe one step above blogs. I rely on the print media for a reason
I agree that we need to maintain and support real reporters, and I am very worried about the number of markets where the paper has failed or is failing.
The social media conversation is only accessible to the people who follow it though. I may be wrong, but I doubt powerful voting blocs like the elderly or even the boomers are part of that conversation.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
Social media is the equivalent of listening to a guy you meet on the street telling you something that's happened - you can look and kinda get an idea whether he seems trustworthy. You're probably not going to move your investments around because of something a random stranger says, but if you overhear a passerby comment that it's supposed to rain, it might prompt you to check a more reliable source so you know whether you need to put the top up on your convertible.
So, it's like journalism.
There is an expectation that a professional journalist did the neccessary legwork to ensure their story is true. Even something trivial, like making sure quotes are accurate. If I read something on a blog, I feel like I have no reason to believe it isn't made up, and if the only other sources that back this blog up are other blogs, I don't know if they are all aware of a fact, or just copying the first blog, which may have itself been false. The only way I can be confident is to verify the information with a professional news source, but then why waste time looking at the blogs in the first place?
Edit: this isn't to say I read no blogs. I read blogs affiliated with major newspapers, and a few others in niche areas (Engadget, abovethelaw) where the MSM doesn't cover the topics, or doesn't cover them as well. But when it comes to "real" news, I'd rather leave it to the professionals. This isn't to say there may not be really good news blogs that are trustworthy, but again, it just takes more time than I am willing to devote to find them, when I feel like I am getting by just find with newspaper sites.
This was more likely to be true historically, I want to say. Although in fairness you specifically mentioned newspapers as opposed to the 24-hour TV news infotainment clusterfuck that we're all suffering from.
Anyway, my point was not that social media is a replacement for journalism - we need actual journalists, and we're going to have to figure out a way to incentivize that legwork now that traditional paid media outlets are largely marginalized and unprofitable. My point was that looking at social media gives a barometer of the impact of OWS - a shift in the actual discussion as opposed to the one that is taking place among the polite conversation of approved subjects and narratives that is the MSM.
I regard the tv news as maybe one step above blogs. I rely on the print media for a reason
I agree that we need to maintain and support real reporters, and I am very worried about the number of markets where the paper has failed or is failing.
The social media conversation is only accessible to the people who follow it though. I may be wrong, but I doubt powerful voting blocs like the elderly or even the boomers are part of that conversation.
No, this is right. But it's partially the Democrats' ability to utilize social media (see the last Presidential election) that's giving them a comparative advantage among everyone that isn't in these rapidly-shrinking demographics. The MSM narrative doesn't resonate with the 18-30ish demographic because it isn't for them; it's marketed to appeal to the fears and nostalgia of boomers and old people.
... Like how CNN and Fox News both announced that Obamacare had been repealed? (Hell, is Fox News ever right?) Find that accountability!!!
They both receieved massive amounts of shit for that though. So much so that it became its own mini-story. Now compare that to the great number of alternative press sites and social media "reporting" sites like reddit who predicted full blown martial law due to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
CNN and Fox News were wrong for a few minutes about a USSC decision and were called out for it. Alternative and social news outlets predicted immediate, full-blown tyrany and no one blinked an eye.
This is worth noting, I think. While I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next time, I failed to get the humor of TDS' comparison of seven seconds of wrong at CNN versus two seconds of wrong for Fox. They both jumped the gun. What the fuck did five seconds matter? This was not nuclear warfare or a major assassination or something. They got it wrong.
And that was enough. People really jumped down their throats for jumping the gun (the real problem, no one should give a shit about a five second difference). Previously, I would not have expected that fact to be reflected on. That's a little improvement.
Posts
The first point is going to be contentious since there was such a broad spectrum of opinion about OWS' goals. Some protesters were focused on individual legislation demands while others opposed even making specific demands. But the general tone I got from interviews and /r/occupywallstreet though was that most protesters wanted a revolution of some kind, not just steady progress. Obviously this never came about. The consolation prize was introducing "income inequality" and "the 1%" memes into the national consciousness, but when compared to the actual legislative impact of the Tea Party (no new taxes ever, focus solely on deficit reduction through spending cuts rather than stimulus spending), I think this is a pretty weak legacy.
The failure of their new parallel, anti-mainstream system of communication and politics was the biggest problem of OWS. The whole idea behind the General Assembly structure, up twinkles, and no formal leadership was that these alternate forms of democracy were legitimate alternatives to our current representative system. They were supposed to show that a grassroots movement didn't need to attach itself to a political party to bring about change. Instead they proved the opposite. Once again, compare this to the Tea Party movement. They focused their outrage towards working within the system, obtaining House seats, and actually came close to shutting down the government to protest their grievances.
The thing that kills me is that OWS is a response to very real problems about skyrocketing income inequality since the early 80s and the insanely corrupt and flat out dangerous practices of investment banks. If OWS primarily rallied around getting "Occupist" Representatives elected rather than fighting for city camping space, they could have had a huge impact this November. But instead we're judging success by the amount of "awareness" raised by this huge outpouring of effort.
How can you claim to be "very computer savvy" and then in the same sentence claim that you don't understand social media.
I understand that you mean on a technical level, but perhaps it's time to enter the 21st century.
I mean, you're basically a media dinosaur even if you aren't that old. No one is saying social media should be your only source (at least they shouldn't be if they don't want to be geese), but the only thing you have to lose by expanding your sources is your limited world view.
The accountability is that if a blogger turns out to be full of crap people will stop reading and taking them seriously. You should be consuming lots of different sources and using Critical Thinking Skills to get to the truth.
Pretty much. My biggest fear, right from the start when everyone was just ignoring OWS, was that like many leftist movements, it would be infested with anarchist/anti-government/marxist/leninist/communist/etc types. The kind of people who are either completely anti-orginization or anti-the-whole-political-system. And those people doom you to failure if you don't get them in line.
Even if you want to overthrow the whole system, you can't do it all at once. People generally like the system. You've got to work within it. And that's what we've learned here.
OWS was so focused on it's internal orginizational goals, it forgot to do anything about it's political goals.
The "THE GOVERNMENT IS A CANCER" people are themselves a cancer to your political party, long term. Sooner or later people expect you to actually govern, and while they've been good at deflecting their lack of governing onto Obama, best case scenario for them is they win the white house and then get ousted a few years later
Cable news ratings continue to drop like the Hindenburg. This is because they no longer even pretend to humor their opponents, and have gotten so good at filtering troublesome people out that there's no longer even the drama of listening to some doomed soul and realizing that, contrary to what JVM/NG/RG/VP says, they're not coming back to her after the break.
Stuff like [url="newsmotion.org/betatest[/url] and FSTV exists to create an information shift and provide a truly alternative media, similar to public access in the sixties and seventies.
(Newsmotion needed an initial celeb endorsement and launched without doing the sensible thing and padding itself out with other people's stories. It also forgot to roll it's fucking beta out or have something on the front page saying that it exists and that new stories are being published on it, so... heh. :birthpangs:)
I think this is a fair assessment. Getting "Occupist" reps elected was something I was pushing for within our own elections from the local on up and trying to deal with the "anti-the-whole-establishment" people goes nowhere but in fighting pretty that much troll bullhorns from within the movement and towards it, over important issues of wealth disparity and its impact on healthy democracy, our enviroment, and our economy. Anything that isn't helping push back Feudal System 2.0 so we have a society that gives a shit about each other is infuriating to me.
... Like how CNN and Fox News both announced that Obamacare had been repealed? (Hell, is Fox News ever right?) Find that accountability!!!
They both receieved massive amounts of shit for that though. So much so that it became its own mini-story. Now compare that to the great number of alternative press sites and social media "reporting" sites like reddit who predicted full blown martial law due to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
CNN and Fox News were wrong for a few minutes about a USSC decision and were called out for it. Alternative and social news outlets predicted immediate, full-blown tyrany and no one blinked an eye.
Were people taking that shit seriously?
Like I said, you shouldn't make social media and blogs your only source of news. But to ignore them completely is pretty goosteriffic.
"Someone stops reading your blog" means nothing, since they can just start a new blog with a new name.
My issue is that there is so much being put out there by so many amateurs, and, like Wikipedia, I have no way to know if a single word is true. I prefer to wait for a professional to "curate" things for me and let me know what is worth paying attention to, without having to expend a lot of time searching for information and then looking for other information to corroborate everything I am reading. I understand and agree that this would be the better approach, but it is simply too time consuming. This is the same reason that I almost never watch amateur videos on the Internet. I am willing to accept that I may miss out on some great things on YouTube rather than spend tons of time weeding through the mud for the diamonds.
There are blogs and there are blogs.
I'm not saying go on and read any idiots blog, but there are a lot of respectable outlets out there. Reading more than "the nation's paper of record" which, by the way, the NYT can call itself that all it wants it gets less and less true everyday will only broaden your understanding of issues.
The internet is a tool, use it for god's sake.
Until you do, be prepared to be less informed than other people.
Never trust Wikipedia on controversial issues.
Avoid Facebook as a source of any news.
Serious as a heart attack. Check the link. The reddit consensus across the political spectrum was that the mainstream media was either being outright censored or was somehow complicit with the plans to institute a police state via NDAA. So blogs
I'm becoming more and more wary of the vast majority of non-MSM-affiliated blogs. I've wasted more time than anyone ever should on /r/politics reading shitty upvoted fearmongering blog entries. The signal-to-shrill-noise ratio is far too low. Either it's some reiteration of "DEMOCRACY IS DEAD" , or it's some dumb niche topic that only the internet is dumb enough to rally around. I know more about the NDAA and the details of Ron Paul's fucking primary campaign than is healthy.
I've made a conscious effort to read more of the NYT in place of the usual /r/politics gruel, and I know I'm more informed because of it. All the good blogs I subscribe to (Krugman's, Ezra Klein's, 538) are all attached to some newspaper. If I had to pick a sane/productive ratio of MSM-affiliated content to independent blog content, I'd say it's at least 4:1.
TLDR: Webrings are making a comeback!
and I recently got a twitter account (hello 21st century!) and most of my people i'm following are AP, Reuters, and other news organizations.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
FTFY
With a little personalization, the Google News page makes a nice aggregator.
Gawker already brought frames everywhere. It's like geocities there. I literally don't read any gawker blogs anymore.
This. The OWS movement never bothered about organizing themselves. Nor did they try to create a coherent message.
Frankly, its view of politics was naive. They were the Quincy Adams to reality's Andrew Jackson.
Imma point out here I have never, nor will I ever, endorsed reddit as a source of news.
The point is not for you to get news from social media (although MSM is increasingly relying on user-generated content). The point is that viewing the trends on these kinds of sites gives a better impression of what an increasingly-large segment of the population views as legitimately important, regardless of what the 'established media' has deemed important.
They're not difficult to understand, it's not rocket science. Look around some blogs on their services and you'll get an idea about how they work.
Have you met Fox News? Or CNN?
I'm not sure you even understand mainstream media.
The beauty of the Internet - if you know how to work it - is that you can research pretty much any claim you come across to find out if it is valid. If you swallow some bullshit in the 21st century because you get your news from Glen Beck, then it's all on you.
NYTimes.com provides this sort of information (most read and most emailed article lists).
Like I have said a few times, I agree that looking at more would be the ideal, but it would also take a lot of time. I prefer to let sources I trust filter and curate the stories, even if it mean I miss some stories or perspectives, or if I don't see some stories until after the MSM has had a chance to turn to it and let it develop. Incidentally, I don't watch tv news at all. I only trust major newspapers for the most part.
Well then don't be surprised when you enter conversations with people who are more informed and they don't take your "but I never heard of this!" to heart.
The entire point I was trying to get across was that the MSM did not portray OWS the way that people here say it was in reality, but that for most people, the reality doesn't matter, because they never saw or hears about anything but what the MSM showed them.
Or the NYTimes. Or the WaPo.
So, it's like journalism.
There is an expectation that a professional journalist did the neccessary legwork to ensure their story is true. Even something trivial, like making sure quotes are accurate. If I read something on a blog, I feel like I have no reason to believe it isn't made up, and if the only other sources that back this blog up are other blogs, I don't know if they are all aware of a fact, or just copying the first blog, which may have itself been false. The only way I can be confident is to verify the information with a professional news source, but then why waste time looking at the blogs in the first place?
Edit: this isn't to say I read no blogs. I read blogs affiliated with major newspapers, and a few others in niche areas (Engadget, abovethelaw) where the MSM doesn't cover the topics, or doesn't cover them as well. But when it comes to "real" news, I'd rather leave it to the professionals. This isn't to say there may not be really good news blogs that are trustworthy, but again, it just takes more time than I am willing to devote to find them, when I feel like I am getting by just find with newspaper sites.
OWS was a fairly amazing achievement. Major demonstrations, ongoing round the clock for weeks, in over dozen major cities, without outside financial backing, organisation and support. That is a very rare feat. One unsurpassed in the last 40 years at least.
In terms of passion and commitment it far outstriped the TEA party, with its astroturfed support and major media(fox news) foghorn.
Showing up to a rally in a tricorn hat < showing up and staying for several weeks(months really).
This also illustrates why the OWS failed. The TEA party had organisation that could force their ideas onto the ballots and shift the political landscape towards it. If someone had been able to harness the OWS into a viable political movement, it would have been a game-changer. Without any clear leadership and goals, the most passionate lose focus and fail.
This was more likely to be true historically, I want to say. Although in fairness you specifically mentioned newspapers as opposed to the 24-hour TV news infotainment clusterfuck that we're all suffering from.
Anyway, my point was not that social media is a replacement for journalism - we need actual journalists, and we're going to have to figure out a way to incentivize that legwork now that traditional paid media outlets are largely marginalized and unprofitable. My point was that looking at social media gives a barometer of the impact of OWS - a shift in the actual discussion as opposed to the one that is taking place among the polite conversation of approved subjects and narratives that is the MSM.
It also kinda depends on what sort of news you are looking for. Honestly,if you want quality science reporting, mainstream media outlets are pretty much actually bad at reporting. Whereas, is you look at blogs you can find some very detailed, accurate and informative content, frequently reported by folks who actually understand what they are talking about. Given that there is something like a community of smart folks going around reading them, you get something like peer review, mainstream stuff you really don't have anyone fact checking the has an understanding of the material.
I regard the tv news as maybe one step above blogs. I rely on the print media for a reason
I agree that we need to maintain and support real reporters, and I am very worried about the number of markets where the paper has failed or is failing.
The social media conversation is only accessible to the people who follow it though. I may be wrong, but I doubt powerful voting blocs like the elderly or even the boomers are part of that conversation.
No, this is right. But it's partially the Democrats' ability to utilize social media (see the last Presidential election) that's giving them a comparative advantage among everyone that isn't in these rapidly-shrinking demographics. The MSM narrative doesn't resonate with the 18-30ish demographic because it isn't for them; it's marketed to appeal to the fears and nostalgia of boomers and old people.
This is worth noting, I think. While I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next time, I failed to get the humor of TDS' comparison of seven seconds of wrong at CNN versus two seconds of wrong for Fox. They both jumped the gun. What the fuck did five seconds matter? This was not nuclear warfare or a major assassination or something. They got it wrong.
And that was enough. People really jumped down their throats for jumping the gun (the real problem, no one should give a shit about a five second difference). Previously, I would not have expected that fact to be reflected on. That's a little improvement.