Media

The danger of a society reliant on internet for their news is that they are at the liberty of the internet's source. Sure, Twitter is fantastic. As news occurs, it quickly becomes a trending topic. But is it enough to prompt Tweeters to research beyond the tweets of friends and celebrities? More often than not no. Their understanding of an event may be solely the opinion and "facts", correct or not, of those they follow on Twitter. Similarly, even reading news articles online takes interaction out of news delivery. You can read the opinions of liberal and conservative views on the Trayvon Martin case, but will you ever see the family's reaction to the event? Perhaps, if people are interested enough, they will do some digging on an issue and find a clip. But that is work. And, when it comes to news, people often look for a delivery that is convenient. This is why television news has always been so popular.You "see" news rather than reading it. Also, those in search of internet news are often focused only on news that "entertains". Many Americans don't go beyond the top 5 Yahoo or AOL stories of the day. As a result, Americans find interest in "Hunger Games star gets his nose fixed" and "5 Habits of Wealthy Americans" (Yahoo news 5/16/12). Is this real news? Or simply "entertainment" stories that prompt readers to stay on a site. Again, this is the trouble with internet "news". As magazines and newspapers decline in popularity, internet news is taking their place. Because of this, it is increasingly important that internet users search out news from reliable sources and look for current events of importance.