The rise of Placebloggers, and Evaluating News on the Net

Julie Fanslow wrote Community Blogging: The New Wave of Citizen Journalism for the National Civic Review. Once a placeblog has been launched, the comments and forums foster a great deal of collaboration between reporters and citizens. They are also more likely to function as “watchdog” groups than traditional journalism. Fanslow takes a generally optimistic tone about the potential value of community bloggers, and the role that they play in publicizing local issues and organizing groups for action.

We should compare these benefits with the observations in Melican and Dixon’s article, News on the Net: Credibility, Selective Exposure, and Racial Prejudice. They report that “people may select only the sources that reinforce specific political or racial beliefs.” News that comes from the internet is often derided for its lack of credibility, but the most interesting observations are about selective exposure. As people look for their own beliefs to be validated, they are building competing versions of reality. Consider conservapedia.com to wikipedia.org. The former was created specifically to counter the “liberal bias” in wikipedia. Stephen Colbert has jokingly remarked that reality has a liberal bias, but user generated content can provide information that mirrors pre-existing beliefs. Is this a downward spiral?

Traditional news media has an explicit goal of avoiding bias and striving for objectivity. But Melican argues that the Internet news may “feed the growth of racism and racial animosity” because credibility is ultimatley measured by how well the information corresponds to our pre-existing beliefs. As non-traditional news sources grow (like placeblogs), the issue of credibility and bias will become more important. One last caveat is the difference between “news” in the traditional sense, and information with an agenda; the line is becoming increasingly blurred. Just remember to read critically and check references.

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