Perfect or Exaggerated?

As a skeptical person, I could not help but take much of what Dan Gilmor said in "We the media Grassroots Journalism By The People, For The People," with a grain of salt. He painted an extremely optimistic and upbeat picture of the Internet and blogging, which seems to contradict much of what we have uncovered thus far in Media and Politics class this semester.

First, he makes the Internet seem all-good, without discussing many of the problems it both creates and fails to solve. His initial point, which he writes about in his introduction, is that the Internet makes the former audience of the news newsmakers. While I am not denying this line of reasoning, I think Gilmor exaggerates it. For me personally, the news I look at on the Internet is the news reported by MSM on their websites, like nytimes.com, and therefore do not utilize the diverse sources provided by the Internet. I don't create my own news or look at the news created by others. Instead, I rely on the same sources I would look at had the Internet never been invented. I have a hunch others follow similar pattern when searching for news on the web.

Additionally, Gilmor makes it seem like the Internet is the ultimate form of democracy. While in its purest sense it may award equal opportunities for all people to be news consumers and newsmakers, this is only an ideal and not the reality. As Jan E. Leighly pointed out in her book “Mass Media and Politics A Social Science Perspective,” the advantages of the Internet are embellished. While it makes information more readily available than ever, it is still not used as much as television and radio are. “Not everyone is wired- at least at the same level that television or radio is available almost universally in the United States,” she writes. Those who are “wired” are often from a particular racial and social class, which negates the democratic aspects of the technological medium. Similarly, when people surf the web they are often not doing so to obtain political information, and if they are, they often go to partisan sites that agree with their views. While I am not saying that Leighly is the ultimate source and should be taken 100% at face value, as one can argue that she is too critical of the avenues the Internet opens and creates, it is interesting to note that the Internet is not the saving grace Gilmor makes it out to be either.

The same can be said about how Gilmor portrays blogging. I am a fan of blogging, seeing as I am a blogger, but again, Gilmor paints too rosy of a picture of this new phenomenon. Referring back to a previous post of mine, while the blogosphere does open up avenues for conversation and interaction, a fault of the MSM, the discussion it enables and produces is not always enlightening. For every intelligent comment made by bloggers, there are probably just as many obscene statements posted on a regular basis. Gilmor fails to address the problem that mass communication and mass participation can spark when the masses included have nothing credible or newsworthy to say.

Technology, which includes other tools besides the Internet, has definitely opened up the media/news industry and created additional positive opportunities for lay citizens who wish to be both consumers and producers of news. The situation is optimistic; yet, it is not necessarily as hopeful and buoyant as Gilmor makes it out to be.