Jarvis

In some ways, Sullivan supports Jarvis’s view of the press sphere; however, it does not give enough support to back Jarvis’s argument entirely. In his article, “Why I Blog”, Sullivan discusses the fluidity of the blogging. It is instantaneous and revolutionary. It allows an unlimited audience, without the interference of editors and publishers. Blogging has made writing interactive. Readers can respond to pieces immediately. Bloggers use the comments, arguments, and links of their readers in later blogs. Blogging is as much like participating in a conversation as it is writing. Jarvis also talks about the use of the internet and interaction of peers in his blog. He and Sullivan both feel that information is spread more quickly than ever before through the use of modern technology. However, to say that the press was the only source of news before the internet is like saying sci-fi novels were the only form of literature before blogging. Sullivan never claims that before the internet, writing was only communicated in one way. In fact, he states that Montaigne’s style of publishing and revising his essays was in many ways similar to blogging. Blogs are also slightly different than Jarvis’s model of the press sphere. A blog consists of the writing of a specific person or group of people. The blogger or bloggers may use links and sources to support their writing, but it is still their blog. Even though it is constantly being changed and updated, it is continuously theirs. The press sphere is a much vaguer concept. I can point to a blog and say “This is a blog”. How can you identify a press sphere? A press sphere is different for everyone. It will involve different sources for different people. Although blogs and the press sphere are both constantly changing, the press sphere is even less tangible than blogging.
Jarvis’s me-sphere fits my experience with the news most closely. I don’t agree with it entirely, but everyone interprets news differently. We all use different mediums and have different perspectives.

Jarvis

In his blog, “The Press Becomes the Press Sphere”, Jeff Jarvis has some interesting explanations for the shifts of power within the media. Jarvis describes the press-sphere as, “When we put the public at the center of the universe…we see the choices we all call upon: the press still, yes, but also our peers, media… search, links, original sources, companies, the government. It’s all information and we curate it and interact with it with the tools available.” According to Jarvis, the press no longer controls news like it used to. He believes that news used to be filtered through the press, but today we receive our news from a multitude of sources. In my opinion, his view is overly simplistic. It is undeniable that the way we receive news is changing. The internet has transformed the way information is transferred and shared. However, it is extremely inaccurate to state that the press was the only way news was spread ‘back-in-the-day’. Jarvis stresses the importance of the communication between peers as a source of news. Although it is easier to communicate with one another, our peers have not changed that much. We can connect and talk to people across the world with a touch of a button, but we still gravitate towards people who share our views and opinions. People were able to communicate by phone, and before that through letters. A prime example was during World War II. A lot of the news circulating in the states was inaccurate. The most accurate sources were letters written by soldiers. To this day, these personal accounts are used to gain a better understanding of what really happened during the war.

The New York Times

I have really enjoyed reading the New York Times. Now that I have begun reading it, I wish I had started reading it sooner. Whenever I get on, I glance at the headlines, but I go almost straight to the world section. The article that has drawn my attention the most was “7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity”. Every time I have gotten online I immediately begin looking for the latest section. I have been really sick the last few days, and I do not have internet at home, so I have not been able to read the latest sections. The story is the first hand account of David Rohde. He was in Pakistan researching the Taliban for a book he was writing. He had done multiple projects in the Middle East and was familiar with the customs of the people. Rohde arranged a meeting with one of the fraction leaders, but on his way there he and two of his associates were kidnapped. His account relates his experiences during the 7 and a half months of his captivity. I have had little time to read the New York Times, so reading this article has been like watching a fantastic movie that I have to stop and start repeatedly. I have been so drawn to this story, the other headlines only receive a passing glance on the b-line to the latest part. I have noticed that my interest in foreign affairs has changed. When I hear about the Middle East or Taliban on the new, I pay more attention than I have before. It has also peaked my interest in what I can do to help. It has made me ask myself how I can gain a better understanding of the Taliban; their motivations and goals. And, more importantly, what can I do to help protect people from this type of cruelty.

Blog Updates

Originally I was going to follow Glenn Beck’s blog, but after looking more closely I realized that it is not updated very often. I went back to Fox New’s main blog page and found a blog called “On the Scene”. It is updated by many different correspondents with Fox on important issues. It is updated all day, every day, so there is a never a shortage of news to catch up on. The most recent blog was about a 7 yr old girl from northern Florida who disappeared while walking home from school a few days ago. Police found her body two days later in a trash heap. Investigators from local, state, and federal agencies are searching for her killer. The format of the blog is designed for people on-the-go, who want to stay up to date on important stories, but do not have the time to read the paper or watch the news. It is also written fairly simply, so it is easy to pick out the important facts without reading all the extra information. It’s also very right-wing conservative. The other blog I'm following is the Daily Dish. The most recent blog is about an advertisement in Britain. It shows a father reader his daughter a bedtime story about the consequences of CO2. In the story, there are little puppies drowning and rabbits crying because they do not have enough water to drink. I think the advertisement had good intentions, but it was plain creepy. Sullivan’s blog leans more to the left, but it is also designed to be read quickly because it is short and concise. Many different authors contribute to the blog.

I am going to follow The Daily Dish by Sullivan, because, from my limited exposure to him, we seem to share similar views. I also really enjoy the way he writes.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/#

I am not sure if this counts as a tradtitional blog, because they are short written pieces then a video, but i really like Glenn Beck, so I'm going to follow his blog.

http://glennbeck.blogs.foxnews.com/

News Comparison

I was surprised to discover that the majority of our news sources are similar. Hardly any of us actively engage in seeking out the news. It appears that most of our news gathering is passive. We hear news through other people, or we happen upon it while doing other things. Sometimes, if we are particularly interested in something, we will look it up online. However, even when we are online, we do not really get exposed to the news because we are only looking up one particular story or issue. I find it rather ironic that most of the class expressed the desire to pay more attention to current events, and yet none of us find or make the time. Civic literacy involves the circulation of texts in a public sphere. It is interesting that since more and more people have begun to rely on the internet for their news, it appears that the news had become one-sided. We have a tendency to read only things that interest us. Therefore, it is not surprising that the news has also begun to lean one way or the other to encourage more listeners or viewers. According to Hedges, “Those who rely on the Internet gravitate to sites that reinforce their beliefs. The filtering of information through an ideological lens, which is destroying television journalism, defies the purpose of reporting.” There was a time when the news was strictly factual, meant to inform rather than entertain. As newsrooms, newspapers, and radio stations are feeling the pressure to compete with one another they have to focus on both retaining or gaining the maximum number of customers and telling the truth. It is virtually impossible to do both at the same time.

A Melting Pot of Snippets

Even though I like to keep up to date with current events, I rarely have time to watch the news. When the news is on in a restaurant or doctor’s office, I am one of those annoying people who reposition their chair and get completely sucked into the report. However, when I have the time to watch TV at home, I am usually so worn out that I end up watching something that will not require too much thought on my part. I do listen to the radio a lot. I live about thirty minutes from campus, so my commute ends up being over an hour both ways. My truck, as much as I love it, is technologically unequipped. I do not have a CD player, and the tape player is broken; so I have plenty of time to listen to the radio during my drive. My mom sends me links to news videos that she thinks are interesting once every few days. Almost every time I get on Yahoo!, I see an article that seems interesting and I spend a few minutes reading over it. When the homework I am working on does not require too much concentration, I like to turn on the CNN video clips, and listen to them while I do my homework. Every once in a while, I will hear a story that interests me, so I will look it up online when I get home. For example, today I was spending time with my best friend and her family. Her mom was telling us about a baby whose stroller fell in front of a subway and survived. As soon as I got back to my friend’s dorm, we found the story online. I am ashamed to say that I don’t follow the news the way I should. My limited few of current events is a melting pot of snippets I here during my busy day.

Final Essay

Here is my final essay.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Af6i16cwRwAqZGNwM3I1a2JfM2M3emp3YmRj&hl=en

Nicole Denson
Professor Leake
English 105
28 September 2009
A New Age of Technology:
A Revolution in Reading and Writing
Since the creation of the internet in 1990, the World Wide Web has transformed the way we communicate. The technological progress that has been made within the last few decades will continue to affect our society for generations. The question is not whether it will affect us, but how. Studies, along with countless anecdotes, and personal experiences have shown that the internet has changed the way we read and write. Opinions about whether this change is good or bad range from one extreme to the other. It is nearly impossible to understand the far reaching consequences of this literary transformation; however, by trying to address the negative and positive results, we may be better prepared to deal with the issues that will face our generation and generations to come.
Before one can address the negative and positive attributes of the internet, he or she must understand what the internet actually is. According to the article, “The Web”, Tim Berners-Lee was a computer scientist working at CERN in the late 1980s. CERN is a particle physics laboratory near Geneva, which houses thousands of scientists using countless different computer systems. At the time, documents were stored hierarchically. The system was inefficient and complicated, so Berners-Lee proposed a new system that would solve CERN’s documentation problems. This proposal became what we now know as the internet. (Moyer)
Many people believe that the internet has had a negative effect on the way we read and write. It is difficult to deny their rationale when we begin to closely examine some of the changes happening today. One of the major problems facing the United States is the astonishing illiteracy rates. In his article, “America the Illiterate”, Chris Hedges states that over 42 million adults in the United States cannot read, and 50 million have the reading comprehension level of a fourth or fifth grader (1). That is nearly a third of the population of the United States, and the number of illiterate or semi-literate adults is increasing at an alarming rate of nearly 2 million a year. (Hedges, “Amer. the Illiterate” 1) The fact that the illiteracy rates are so high is frightening in and of itself, but when one considers some of the other statistics, the picture begins to look very grave.
According to Chris Hedges, when people read the New York Times, they spend about 45 minutes with the physical paper. The average viewer of the New York Times website is about 7 minutes (“Bad Days for Newsrooms” 2). There is a fundamental difference between reading and skimming. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Nicholas Carr relates a conversation he had with Bruce Friedman, a pathologist at the University of Michigan. Friedman told Carr, “I can’t read War and Peace anymore. I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it” (2). I have even noticed myself skimming rather than reading. When I was younger, I was an avid reader. My mom used to make me go to bed at 9:30 pm, and there were many evenings that I pretended to be asleep until I thought she had gone to bed. As soon as the coast was clear, I would slip my reading light and book out from under my pillow and silently find my page. I spent countless nights curled up in bed reading until I began to see sunlight creeping through my bedroom window. Today, I find it difficult to even make it through my required reading for class. If the illiteracy rates are increasing, and literate people are having more and more difficulty reading long texts, what does that mean for the literacy of our country?
Another concern is that we are becoming too overloaded with information that may, or may not, be accurate. Every time we get online, we are flooded with new bits of information, like which movie star just got divorced and where to buy the cheapest, designer purses. After being online for just a few hours, I often feel like my brain is weighed down with useless information. In his article, Nicholas Carr quoted the playwright, Richard Foreman, who stated that we risk becoming, “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button”(7). Even accurate or useful information can be misleading when read improperly. In “Bad Days for New Rooms”, Chris Hedges states, “Those who rely on the Internet gravitate to sites that reinforce their beliefs” (2). There is nothing wrong with blog posts and websites that are based on opinion. The danger is when people believe these opinions as if they are fact, and then use them to justify their own misguided views.
The concern that we are becoming too overloaded with information goes one step further. Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google while they were working towards there doctorates at Stanford. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr quotes them saying:
“The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter,” Page said in a speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence.” In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” (6)
The idea of an artificial intelligence, let alone one attached to my brain, makes me feel rather uneasy.
I have a tendency to get wrapped up in conspiracy theories. I never get too carried away, but I enjoy contemplating the future and what it may hold, for better, but especially for worse. In my opinion, there is a fine line between individuality and the blogosphere. I am of the opinion that we are what we read. As the illiteracy rates in the United States begin to climb, the public is less able to educate themselves. They can only believe what they hear and are therefore cut off from the knowledge available to literate people (Hedges, “Amer. the Illiterate”). As we begin to skim rather than read, I am afraid that we will lose the depth of knowledge that comes from reading and analyzing a full length novel. The more people interact on the internet the more similar their writing, reading, and thinking will be. At first we may sound individual, but what happens when our thoughts and words become a series of hyperlinks to be skimmed over? Joseph Harris discusses his views of academic writing in his novel, Rewriting. I agree with his view that academic writing is rewriting what other people have already written (1). I believe that this concept includes all types of writing. Everything we do, think, and write has a basis in someone else’s ideas. As people become more apt to skim than read and summarize rather than write, what will happen to that sense of individuality that can only be truly expressed through long, eloquent prose?
On the other hand, the internet has become an intricate part of our everyday lives. There are an overwhelming number of benefits that even a cynic like me cannot dismiss. Through the internet, we are able to access an unlimited amount of information. With a few clicks of a button, I can find out anything from the current weather in China to the name of the Senator of Oklahoma. The majority of interactions in businesses and even on campuses like the University of Louisville take place through e-mail or on a website. In addition to the accessibility of information and the ease of communication, everyone is able to write online. In his article, “Why I Blog”, Andrew Sullivan states, “It was obvious from the start that it [blogging] was revolutionary. Every writer since the printing press has longed for a means to publish himself and reach—instantly—any reader on Earth” (3).
In the end, all we can do is speculate. It is impossible to know today what the lasting consequences of the internet and our changed literacy styles will be. There are many valid concerns; however, I believe the majority of people are too determined and strong willed to allow the internet or Artificial Intelligence to consume their individuality. I have always loved to read and write, but the way we think and therefore communicate has been changing and evolving for thousands of years. There has been a fear of change throughout the ages. Carr writes:
The arrival of Gutenberg’s printing press, in the 15th century, set off another round of teeth gnashing. The Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico worried that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men “less studious” and weakening their minds. Others argued that cheaply printed books and broadsheets would undermine religious authority, demean the work of scholars and scribes, and spread sedition and debauchery. (7)
Without the printing press the world would be a much different and less educated place then it is today. Although I would hate to see the eloquence of prose get lost in the crossfire of modern technology, sometimes things must get lost for sake of progress.


Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Weblog Post. Atlantic. Jul/Aug. 2008. 13 Sep. 2009 <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google.>
Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How to do Things with Texts. Logan, Utah: Utah State
University Press, 2006
Hedges, Chris. “America the Illiterate.” Weblog Post. Truthdig. 10 Nov. 2008. 14 Sep. 2009 <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/>
Hedges, Chris. “Bad Days for News Room.” Weblog Post. Truthdig. 21 Jul. 2008. 16 Sep. 2009 <http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080721_so_goes_the_newsroom_the_empire_and_the_world/>
Moyer, Michael. “The Web. (cover story).” Scientific American Vol. 301 Issue 3. Sep. 2009: 100. EBSCOhost. Univ of Louisville, Louisville, KY. 27 Sep. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=43608611&site=ehost-live>
Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I Blog." Weblog Post. Atlantic. Nov. 2008. 30 Aug. 2009 <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog>
Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." Weblog Post. Wired. 24 Aug. 2009.16 Sep. 2009