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The Fandomization of News

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Re: The Fandomization of News

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

almost as unpersuasive as the original claim that it has, and they do - a loud minority opinion if I ever heard one, and one that deserves no more effort refuting than you spent proving it in the first place (none) open to hearing evidence of that claim of yours, because the article disagrees with you

[flagged]

I googled, google said you were wrong about your claim that, and I'm quoting you here, "people trust gossip more". Since you say you believe I can google just as well as you, there's no need for you to question this, either.

go figure: google, the article, common sense, and common wisdom, all disagree with you

still open to hearing evidence of that claim of yours, but at this point it seems more likely you'll claim gravity and evolution don't exist and tell me to "google it"

Re: The Fandomization of News

#63
post #54
post #46

One day, I hope we look at this period in history and marvel at the fact that our knowledge of current affairs was largely left to chance (or worse yet, algorithms that are designed not to inform but to sell) -- whatever happens to catch our eye as we scroll through our various timelines. With all the data, technology and query capabilities we have at hand, I'm surprised I can't set up preferences like this: drop spo…

> People bought personalized filter programs to skim a few droplets from that sea and keep the rest out. For some, subjective reality became the selected entertainments and special-interest zines passed through by those tailored shells. > To avoid such staleness, Jen had hired a famous rogue hacker, Sri Ramanujan, to design her own filter. “Let’s see what happens to that list,” she said aloud, “when we use threshold…

I REALLY want customizable recommendation algorithms. I believe a lot of people would like this and it would keep them on platforms more because it makes the experience more enjoyable.

Re: The Fandomization of News

#64
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The messaging in journalism has been so thoroughly hijacked that people trust gossip more no it hasn't, and no they don't this is an example of a common occurrence: a loud minority incorrectly thinking that their opinions represent those of "[the] people" some other examples are American conservatives with their incorrect ideas of what "[the] people" want, and anti-science advocates with their incorrect views that…

The overwhelming majority of people don’t trust the mainstream media: https://news.gallup.com/poll/403166/americans-trust-media-re... “28% of U.S. adults say they do not have very much confidence and 38% have none at all in newspapers, TV and radio. Notably, this is the first time that the percentage of Americans with no trust at all in the media is higher than the percentage with a great deal or a fair amount combin…

I'm no expert in proofs, but one would think the first step in proving "people trust gossip more" would be getting the numbers on what percentage of people trust gossip :)

here's a good resource helpfully shared by another poster here, showing that 61% of Americans trust national news orgs and 71% trust local news orgs: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/10/27/u-s-adult...

I'll need some data showing a greater percentage of people trust "gossip" before I believe the claim that that number is larger than 61 or 71%

Re: The Fandomization of News

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so voters become less informed and so don't know what politician to vote for. How does this help society?

He actually talks about this in his book, democracy already existed before newspapers became big (or even existed). People got informed through books, pamphlets, essays, debates and public gatherings. Now, some articles do inform the people more, one of the big examples is Watergate. But the difference in quality and research between the Watergate articles and the daily news is immense. Most political news-articles a…

I probably should have followed up on the sibling comment rather than this.

I think that following a Twitter or TicToc channel is getting much less information than from mass media. Most do even less follow up or question what the source politician says.

Yes books pamphlets discussions are better but social media in general is none of these it is worse than mass media. Yes there are some blogs that do more but that is rare but that is blogs where you write a thousand words which is not normal social media.

Re: The Fandomization of News

#66
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People bought personalized filter programs to skim a few droplets from that sea and keep the rest out. For some, subjective reality became the selected entertainments and special-interest zines passed through by those tailored shells. > To avoid such staleness, Jen had hired a famous rogue hacker, Sri Ramanujan, to design her own filter. “Let’s see what happens to that list,” she said aloud, “when we use threshold…

I REALLY want customizable recommendation algorithms. I believe a lot of people would like this and it would keep them on platforms more because it makes the experience more enjoyable.

Thirty-plus years ago when that book was published, people (or at least techies) were more optimistic about how personal-computing would empower individuals with tools they personally owned and controlled and configured for their own benefit.

Unfortunately it feels more like we've ended up in the era of being relatively-powerless subscribers or digital-sharecroppers instead: Your "more enjoyable" experience is incompatible with what the corporation believes will maximize its profits.

Re: The Fandomization of News

#67
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I REALLY want customizable recommendation algorithms. I believe a lot of people would like this and it would keep them on platforms more because it makes the experience more enjoyable.

Thirty-plus years ago when that book was published, people (or at least techies) were more optimistic about how personal-computing would empower individuals with tools they personally owned and controlled and configured for their own benefit. Unfortunately it feels more like we've ended up in the era of being relatively-powerless subscribers or digital-sharecroppers instead: Your "more enjoyable" experience is incomp…

> optimistic about how personal-computing would empower individuals with tools they personally owned and controlled and configured for their own benefit.

That's happened. The issue is most people don't _want_ to control and configure these things; they want to outsource that to someone else.

And that's where "influences" and "creators" and such step in: they're offering to sit in front of the firehose and tune things for their audience.

> Unfortunately it feels more like we've ended up in the era of being relatively-powerless subscribers or digital-sharecroppers instead

We have more power now, not less. Businesses can be parasitic, but that's not new. Media lying to the audience isn't new. We shouldn't idealize generations past -- it wasn't all rosy.

Re: The Fandomization of News

#68
post #7

> Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have grown beyond making connections and delivering entertainment into places people trust to keep themselves informed And the NYT, MSNBC, Foxnews, Verge et al have grown beyond places people trust to keep themselves informed into delivering entertainment, going back to the early 2000s with 24 hour cable news and talking heads shows.

Oh I think it goes further back than that. Read a turn-of-the-20th century newspaper for some sensational headlines and muckracking. Perhaps it's always been this way. "Informing the public" via news is inseparable from gossip and campfire tales.

Absolutely. Ben Franklin regularly passed fictional stories off as fact in his newspapers. It has always been thus.

Re: The Fandomization of News

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I googled, google said you were wrong about your claim that, and I'm quoting you here, "people trust gossip more". Since you say you believe I can google just as well as you, there's no need for you to question this, either. go figure: google, the article, common sense, and common wisdom, all disagree with you still open to hearing evidence of that claim of yours, but at this point it seems more likely you'll claim g…

I see that someone provided the citation you claim to need. Happy now?

Re: The Fandomization of News

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I googled, google said you were wrong about your claim that, and I'm quoting you here, "people trust gossip more". Since you say you believe I can google just as well as you, there's no need for you to question this, either. go figure: google, the article, common sense, and common wisdom, all disagree with you still open to hearing evidence of that claim of yours, but at this point it seems more likely you'll claim g…

I see that someone provided the citation you claim to need. Happy now?

yes, the one which indicates your claim that, and I'm quoting you here, "people trust gossip more", is nonsense. Happy now? I am.

or did you not read the parts that say 61/71% of Americans trust national/local media, respectively? Seems higher than "gossip".

here's that link again for you: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/10/27/u-s-adult...

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