Oct.+11


 * Class Summary**

How do editors choose stories that grab the attention of the audience? First of all, we discussed the dynamics of our generation in regards to multitasking through the use of technology. Is this a positive or negative thing? Do we have an addiction to technology or is it simply a shift in the way society communicates? Nicholas Carr, author of //The Shallows,// offers an answer to this controversial question. Through studies, he concludes that multitasking all of the time suppresses the minds ability to focus intently on a singular thing. As this continues to occur, the brain looses all power over this function simply because it is not used. So, as we delve into this age of technology, we must measure the positives and negatives and keep them in mind. Next, we discussed the idea that paying attention is the building block of any society. Through advertisements, political commercials, news broadcasts, online journalism, it is important that the consumer’s attention is caught, brining in revenue or support for the producers. After a discussion about what does catch the eye of consumers, we came up with a list of criterion. Included was proximity, relevance, human interests or emotions, vicarious experiences, visuals such as pictures or footage, and things out of normal spectrum. This is only the tip of the iceberg. P.S. Alex has kindly posted a tutorial on the Ning site addressing some common problems that people may encounter during the News Network Assignment. If you are having difficulties, check it out!


 * Class Discussion**

The question Mrs. Mensing listed on the powerpoint was about what news grabs our attention and if journalists should pay more attention to the stories that receive the most traffic. In my opinion, news that is either relevant to my area or country is what grabs my attention the most. Sports, crime and entertainment seem to strike my interests more than any other news stories, and receiving them from either a magazine/news paper or the internet are the easiest ways to learn about them. Also, the bigger the story, the more coverage it gets from a variety of sources, and you could get multiple points of view, each being different or the same. Many news sources do cover the same news, and it offers relevance, but honestly the same stories over and over again become pretty old very fast. I think that if you want to present the top news, at least present it in a different way, different from the norm. Also, news stories that aren't always the top can still reference as decent news stories to the public if it relates to them in some way. News is news if it hits any emotion relating to you personally, and if the sources where we get our news can explore that, then we will have a better understanding the importance of news in general. -Allie A.

Yesterday in class we discussed how using the internet causes many distractions and disrupts people from really focusing on one thing. Instead of being extremely knowledgeable in a few topics, most people know a little bit of information about many different ones. We also talked about what kind of news grabs our attention. An example some stories last week that grabbed my attention contained two of the factors we discussed, proximity and human interest. Because last week was John Lennon's birthday, there were many stories written about him. Front pages of news websites had stories about how fans were celebrating, what projects Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon have been working on, and interviews with people who have worked with him. I even read one that was called "100 things you didn't know about John Lennon." Although these are interesting stories, they would have been irrelevant to publish if there was no proximity to his birthday. -Alisha Wexler

I think that it would be stupid for journalists to report on what most people want to hear. I beleiev that everyone is different and everyone has different interests. I think it's great that we have many topics to choose from when reading, watching, and listening to news. I wouldn't want the news to narrow everything down to lets say about three topics. Varitey is good and even if the journalist has few readers or listeners, they still have people who are interested in what they have to say about their topic. -Marissa Skinner


 * Class Materials**

[|Video: Profiles of Generation M(2)]

[|Multitasking]

[|MSN: The Myth of Multitasking]

[|Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies]

[|Naked News Daily Headlines] (clean version)

[|Haiti News Network]

[|Nicolas Carr: Author of The Shallows, on The Colbert Report]

Today's Powerpoint presentation