Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

Social networks are globalized. Being captain of your high school football team used to be special, but now it's nothing, when people are comparing themselves against Nobel-prize winning teenagers.

Almost all professional jobs are globalized. Software companies sell globally; financial companies sell globally; drug companies sell globally. That means the most talented professional can charge whatever they want because they can generate profits from a massive market.

But non-college-educated workers are left out. They can only get local jobs, which (a) don't pay as well, and (b) get competition from immigrants. This is exactly how Trump got in the White House and how so many right-wing parties rose across Europe. It's why Brexit happened.

Globalization is even the cause of enshittification. When your market is local, the opinion of your customers is important, and a good reputation allows you to expand to new regions. But when your market is global, you can only grow by extracting more value from existing customers.

Indeed.

Because Reasons I found myself with ready access to cable television about a year ago and spent a few days sampling news from CNN, Bloomberg, and a few other sources. Mind that my understanding is that these are more substantive linear-programmed news sources. I found them all but unwatchable. Most of the airtime was spent either in speculation on what might occur, or (occasionally, for variety), largely uniformed commentary on something which just had, though and substantive specifics were virtually always lacking.

Another long-time preferred information source of mine has been On the Media, from WNYC, New York City. That's a one-hour weekly programme (with a shorter, usually 20--30 minute mid-week podcast episode), generally broken into 3--4 stories. These are typically interviews, pre-recorded and edited. The result is a considered take, usually on substantive stories of the previous week. The show's conceit is that it follows media rather than news, though the distinction is of course pretty blurry. Listening to that and checking headlines from a few sources through the week usually keeps me fairly informed on broad developments without wasting time and attention on irrelevancies.

I'll also subscribe to the individual-segments version of some national-level news programmes. A few times a month I might scan through those and listen to an in-depth segment (usually 3--9 minutes or so) on an item. Most segments, I find, are obviously either speculative or uninformed as with the 24/7 products by Bloomberg and CNN, despite being a once-a-day hourly show.

I've mentioned before on HN that NPR (US public radio network) has lost much quality in its drive to fully-live production starting after 9/11. Prior to that, most of the flagship news programme content (Morning Edition and All Things Considered (evening), as well as weekend programming) consisted of pre-recorded and edited segments, with a live news headlines cover at the top and bottom of the hour, and perhaps a live or at least recent-ish introduction from the programme hosts. With the switch to live production, all of the throat-clearing and jagged-edges of taking on live contributions, chasing guests off the end of their allotted time slots, and inability to edit for length, clarity, and relevance are apparent. I find the result generally both uninteresting and unlistenable.

A daily show which has retained pre-recorded, edited, production basis is The World, from WBUR/Boston. It has a fraction of the budget and staffing of NPR's flagships but produces a far more coherent product. The fact that it's also much less US-centric (despite being a US production) is also welcome respite from the insanity that comprises current US politics (and increasingly, other news-affine aspects).

As for personalisation: I was mostly referring to advertising. But you're quite right: for algorithmic- / AI-curated streams platforms, the specific content items presented to a reader/viewer are also selected by the platform, and generally not with the aim of informing that reader but in addicting them to that content. There's some interesting commentary from early days of the Internet on the hidden value of mass curation (as with large-scale print or broadcast media), or negative side-effects of "personalised" media. John Seeley Brown's The Social Life of Information (2000) addresses the first, Andrew J. Shapiro's The Control Revolution (1999) the second. More recently it's been noted that personalised targeting (of both advertising and "content") means that it's often difficult to assess what kinds of things others in your immediate community are being exposed to, both informally and for those researching media impacts.