Many Americans live in a version of the world remarkably close to the one Michael Schudson pondered in 1995—because either they lack access to news or they choose to ignore journalism in favor of other, more sensational content. By exploring how journalism is increasingly absent from many of our lives, we can identify false paths and promising routes to its reinvention.
InRealLife is both a cautionary tale and a disturbing peek behind-the-curtain into the affected lives of Internet users. While it is a little bit hyped up on the negatives of the network, it’s also good to remember that the situations presented in the film can be extreme, and that there are those who can disconnect and use the Web in moderation. InRealLife is provocative and brings up good points about the perils of Internet addiction.
To say that almost no one uses encyclopedias any more would be an exaggeration. According to the website Alexa, which tracks and ranks sites based on daily visitors and page views, U.S. traffic to britannica.com ranks it at 2,240 on the list of sites, beating the pants off worldbook.com, which comes in around 68,000. Both those brands are ghost towns compared to Wikipedia, which is ranked sixth.
On February 4th Silicon Valley popped corks to celebrate Facebook’s 10th birthday. What began as a relatively exclusive event for the East Coast elite, very soon hit a central nerve and changed the way 1.23 billion people worldwide communicate, interact, engage, catch up, and bristle. Let’s think about those two numbers for a moment: A company that didn’t even exist 10 years ago, has as many users as India has denizens.
The thing that makes the Lulu app problematic, aside from its heteronormativity, is the fact that it does not require consent from the men being rated. Not only are men not able to see their own ratings, but they are not even informed of their presence on the site. In order to determine whether or not they are being rated online, they have to either ask a female friend who is a user or download the app themselves.
It was probably a slow news day when we breathlessly followed along the live-tweeted fight between "The Bachelor" producer Elan Gale and "Diane," a nasty airplane passenger in seat 7A who caused a scene for being delayed on her Thanksgiving flight. Because we've all met "Dianes" in real life, the Internet applauded Gale for sending the offending woman handwritten notes that chastised her unruly, self-absorbed behavior. As you know by this list, he punked us all...even actor Alec Baldwin. "So many questions unanswered about Diane. In 15 minutes I will post the photo and hopefully we can resolve all this," he wrote on Twitter.
Despite Bloomberg Businnessweek's accusation that the Chinese army is spying on Americans, the report that led to the charges has serious flaws. These raise troubling questions about a repetition of the "China spy syndrome." Beginning with The New York Times January 30 disclosure of Chinese hacking, every publication of note or of little note has since run one or more stories on cyber attacks emanating from China.
Godfrey was returning to the area at the time to find inspiration for a book about the lives of the girls who live in a group home since they have nowhere else to go. There, she meets Josephine Bell, the de facto leader of the girls. Godfrey quickly learns of their harsh lifestyle and the fact that the city sees them as disposable.
After I regained composure and equilibrium, I was left in further disbelief when I discovered two eggs in that pot. I realized I had rudely interrupted the nesting of this bird. I imagine it regarded my sudden appearance as a grave threat to the livelihood of its still-to-be-hatched chicks and wasn’t about to let me interfere.
