Reddit and Our Decentralized Media Channels

By -

The media is not what it used to be.  There are so many channels of information that we have access to today that there's no possible way to intake and process it all.  With cable, books, movies, video games, magazines, the internet, our phones, newspapers, cable, satellite TV, and more where do we turn for entertainment and information?  Well, if you're in your twenties or younger the answer is the internet.

But even if we narrow down our media channels to only the internet there is still an overload of content at our fingertips.  Even if we say that we only want to talk about the news of the day the question remains, "Where should we turn?"  Almost every cable news network has a site, as well as every paper, local station, special interest, and political leaning.

I've given up on keeping track of current events, and I'm sad to say that many of my generation have.  With untold amounts of data generated every day there needs to be a way to sort the worthwhile from the trash.  Opinion presented as fact is getting out of hand in the mainstream media and I'm tired of fluff pieces on "news" sites that seem like they should be in Cosmo or on cracked.com instead.

The lines between news and entertainment in the United States are blurring more each day.  When comedians like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert have more to say about events of the day than we can find in the "real" news then there is a problem with our current system.

 Colbert recently became a redditor himself.

This is why I've turned to social link sites to keep myself informed instead of relying on the mainstream media.  There are a few main sites out there, but Reddit is my favorite by far.  Basically people submit links, images, videos, forum posts, and comments to Reddit and other users get to vote them up or down.  This allows for the most popular content to rise to the top and the junk content to stay out of most users sight.  All quality content, no matter what type of content, ends up on the front page.

Not all of the content is news, but when a news story reaches the front page I know it's worth taking the time to read.  Instead of hunting through an entire paper or website for the one big event of the day that's actually worth reading, I can browse reddit for entertainment and let the quality news stories come to me.

That's without even mentioning sub-reddits.  Sub-reddits are groups of content within overall site.  Interested in gaming (probably if you read this blog) then check out the gaming sub-reddit.  How about a particular game like StarCraft 2, Call of Duty, or World of Warcraft?  They have their own sub-reddits too.  Sub-reddit topics range from politics, to humor, to technology, and sex.  If you take a look at the sub-reddits page I know you'll find something that appeals to you.

I don't know what the future of the media will look like, but there is a definite shift happening.  For the moment Reddit points me towards interesting media around the internet, but who knows where I'll be turning for information in 5 years.  Our media consumption is constantly changing with the emergence of social media and constant access to the internet through mobile devices.  One thing is for sure, the mainstream media becomes less relevant every day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently ...
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing g...
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a...
Read more