As I understand it, the ramen noodles theory suggests that online news is an “inferior good” which means that online news can coexist with print newspaper, but print is still considered better. Studies show that most people still prefer to get their news from physical newspapers and that’s also where most advertising money is spent. (I felt like I needed to clarify this because it's counterintuitive to me. I do not think print is better.)
I was surprised
by this article, because I’ve definitely grown up hearing the “print newspapers
are dying” narrative. I think it’s really interesting to find that print
newspapers might actually only be failing because of a self-fulfilling prophecy
on the part of managers. Despite my surprise, this finding reminds me of Dr.
Lee’s research study that we read two weeks ago about how journalists are
pushed to use social media. These articles combined show that there’s a real
lack of understanding about what readers want and/or need, which is troubling.
I’m a little
scared how perfectly this describes the situation I’ve found myself with
reading. I do a lot of reading. I skim the web and social media, I read for
pleasure more than the average person, and as a student I’m often reading more
challenging texts. I’ve found that my tendency is to keep moving, even if I’m
barely processing what I’ve read. I’m often forced, with great annoyance, to go
back and reread.
When the article
talked about how one man was having trouble “reading long sentences with
multiple, winding clauses full of background information” I was reminded of a
book review I wrote for The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
in which I complained about the difficulty I had reading it quickly!
I realize after
reading this article that I do engage in my own “slow reading” process when I
read for pleasure. I realize now that I have to. If I’m reading something I
really want to read, I know to carve out a chunk of time to do it, even if it’s
not of difficult reading level. And when I’m reading something more academic
and challenging, I make myself read it aloud because it slows me down and I
have to pay attention to getting each word.
I really
appreciate how open-minded this article is about how millennials receive their
news. At first, I thought it was going to be a negative article and I was
already preparing myself to feel offended. But when it gets to the part about
how “news and information are woven into an often continuous but mindful way that
Millennials connect to the world generally, which mixes news with social
connection, problem solving, social action, and entertainment,” I was floored.
I’d never thought about it that way. But it strangely rang true.
As a student
accumulating debt, I am in no position to pay for my news. I don’t think I
would pay even if I had money, though, when it’s free so many places. But this
article helped me come to an epiphany when it comes to why people might be mor
likely to pay for print newspapers than digital. I think it’s because when you’re
spending money, it feels like it’s better spent on the tangible, things you can
hold in your hand, and refer to whenever you want.
I do not like to
pay for music streaming because when you pay, it’s for access and not ownership
of the music to play whenever you choose, even if you aren’t online. I don’t
know if paying for digital news allows you to download editions or not, but if
it doesn’t then I think that’s enough reason to buy physical copies instead.
I’m not sure
presumed elevated quality of print has anything to do with it. At least not for
me.
I thought this
article was a little off. The sentence that claims students “are not as noble
in their reading habits when they need beer money” misses the point, and is
rude. Textbooks are expensive, it’s why people prefer to buy them second-hand.
Textbooks are rarely cheaper in their digital format than they are in print,
especially second-hand print. AND few people have need or desire to keep their
textbooks past the semester of the class for which they bought them. There’s
plenty of reasons to pirate textbooks. I bet publishers have been major pushers
for tablets, because they have the most to gain from students using them.
“Examining third-person perception of the
news consumers’ intention to pay”
I found this
article most interesting regarding how it tries to deal with why people are
less likely to pay for news even as the use of digital devices to access news
has increased. I feel like the article on the ramen noodle theory was lacking,
and this article picked up where it left off, even though it didn’t reference
the study (as far as I saw). I’m still not sure the replacing of “information
scarcity with information surplus” is responsible for people’s unwillingness to
pay for news.
I think an
interesting follow up to this study would be to ask people how many peers they
know that pay for their news. Because I feel like more people would be less
willing to pay for something that most people are getting for free, regardless
of quality.
I think I do
agree that the bigger problem for newspapers is that people don’t place a lot
of value on receiving "higher quality” news. Just as most people are perfectly
fine quoting Wikipedia, most people don’t care where they get their news. I think
the most important factor of news is whether or not it is true, not where it
came from.
Although we have
been reading about how the Internet and social media has changed the field of
journalism, this is the first article that has given me some perspective and
taught me a little about some of the big name legacy newspapers that I’ve seen
but not known much about. For instance, I had no idea MSNBC was considered the
liberal version of Fox News, and it was the only source of news I would occasionally read as a
child because it was the homepage on the family computer I used. Also, I’ve
noticed a lot of our articles we read for this class has come from the
Washington Post and I had no idea it was such a major newspaper “back in the
day.”
I really appreciated how this article combined everything we’ve been reading about into a very readable text format uncluttered by distracting ads. I also like how it makes a bigger argument for the democratic need for good news sources using past historical context. It made me think about caring more about the evolution that’s resulted in today’s news.
I really appreciated how this article combined everything we’ve been reading about into a very readable text format uncluttered by distracting ads. I also like how it makes a bigger argument for the democratic need for good news sources using past historical context. It made me think about caring more about the evolution that’s resulted in today’s news.
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