To be honest, much of the content this week didn't surprise me, and I often found myself nodding my head in agreement with some of the information. The collection definitely had a common focus on a.) the apathy of millennials and b.) the apathy (in my opinion) of print publishers.
In Payne's article (Ramen Noodles/online news...), her research highlighted, for me, that rather than focusing on phasing out--or preparing for the decline of "traditional" print media--producers of this content should focus on providing both, but catering to different audiences, possibly across a range of different content areas, and/or modifying content so they're providing a richer product altogether--for all mediums. I do find it interesting, or maybe a little ironic, that the online news model isn't the money-making game-changer it was once anticipated to be.
Rosenwald's Washington Post article addresses the conundrum of scanning and skimming. The entire time I was reading, and even now on reflection, I'm thinking: so? Why do we care? I don't. Outside of being mindful of that pesky little problem the author mentioned more than twice. You know...comprehension. I get that it matters. We need to be retaining, understanding what we're reading. And maybe we're not. For me, I've somehow managed to still be able to skim and retain from both online info gathering and leisure reading. I'm an avid (leisure) reader, and so I don't generally scan, no matter whether online or using my Kindle or reading articles for class. I can, though, though, see how the scan and skim method has evolved. I felt a little conflicted overall. I felt like I should be more alarmed the more I read about it, but again, I kept thinking was, big deal. We've trained ourselves to read tighter and more simply. We get to the point. Where's the bad in that?
(Side note/confessions of a tree killer: I print all the readings for this class and compile them in a notebook. I like to be able to take notes as I go, and I have a "block" when I try to imagine doing the readings online only.)
All I have to say about Rosenwald's other WP article (digital natives prefer print) is: right on. Oh, and again: let's figure out how to better integrate online, traditional to get to a place where consumers can have/use both options.
My opening paragraph was meant to be provocative, okay? My interpretation of the research is that millennials are possibly more resourceful and multi-functional than the rest of us. Maybe millennials are apathetic and needy or whiny, but they're maybe not as disconnected or disengaged as we've been programmed to think. (I did make a note/question this tidbit I saw in multiple places, though: how are they getting news from Instagram and Pintrest?!?)
Dr. Lee and company's paper about intention to pay left me with this: unless or until every single news outlet around forces users to pay for content, I don't think the pay model will ever work. Why should it? I myself don't want to pay for news. So let's strengthen what consumers do pay for, while offering something else altogether interesting online (no repeating of content across outlets, please).
Finally, Kaiser's article (I liked this a lot). I had a light bulb moment while reading: I wonder, at the dawn of TV news, was there as much fretting over the status of how consumers got their news? Did the print industry think it was all over for them then, too? I'd be willing to be so. And look how that turned out, all symbiotic and such.
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