"Are people better informed in the information society?"

To begin, this article through me for a loop in its very first sentences. In the issue summary for Linda Jackson et al, it writes, “this work supports the optimism surrounding the Internet as a tool to level the educational playing field” (364). When we turn the page and looked at her introduction it says quite the opposite, “Roschelle and colleagues came to the less-than-satisfying conclusion that the findings are inconclusive” (366). Basically for the next couple of pages of her argument there is a lot of research that doesn’t necessarily prove anything, yet it doesn’t deny it. There are inclinations and some testimony along the way that children are affected in a positive way by the introduction of computers into their homes but really all it took was that first controversial sentence for me to ultimately wander why I was even reading any further.

As for Mark Bauerlein, he thinks that all of this technology is just making students less apt for intellectual advancement. He is concerned with whether “the ability to communicate equals a quality communication experience” (364). Throughout his article he makes it very clear that he feels right now we have a “nation of know-nothings who don’t read, follow politics, or vote - and who cant compete internationally” (364). I agree with him to a certain extent but the way I understand this is that many people choose not to keep up with real events in the world. They have access to this information just like everyone else but have no interest in it. You can’t just place the blame on everyone for that; you just have to make peace with the fact that that particular individual will not be up to speed with the rest of us. It is frustrating and makes us look naïve, but he/she has a right to the information they want and if it just so happens that none of it has to do with politics, well so be it.

Letter to MSNBC.com

To Whom It May Concern:

            My name is Meghan Denton and in advanced I would like to alert you to the fact that I have been analyzing your website. Do not stop reading; I think you may find my results somewhat intriguing from an outsider’s point of view. Due to limited research time I have spent the past five days examining msnbc.com. Over the course of these five days I went to the homepage, msnbc.com and pressed print. The total number of pages that printed each day was four. On the forth page all that it contained was advertisements, so for the purpose of this analysis I discarded them. My goal in analyzing msnbc.com was to extract information about your use of inflammatory words in the headlines, to look at top stories and top pictures on the page to see the ratio of world news versus US news that was uncovered, and finally I took a look at the construction of the webpage.

            As I am sure you are well aware, an inflammatory word by according to yourdefinition.com is “rousing or likely to rouse excitement, anger, violence, rioting”. Many times these words are used in day to day conversations as “attention grabbers” or used specifically to create some recall or recognition of the subject in question. As a major media source, it would only make sense to draw some attention to your content, however how much is too much? What I found is between the five days I scrutinized your website from October 7, 2010 to October 11, 2010 your use of inflammatory words was more often than not appropriate. Your uses of inflammatory words were appropriate in most cases because they were not used to convey a bias and they were used in sections such as “entertainment” and “tech & science”. I do have to be clear however and state that msnbc.com did use some inflammatory words to reveal more of a liberal bias in its politics section, (which I am sure you are aware of). All in all, the average use of inflammatory words or phrases in the headlines was eight per day. This does not however count the multiple stories that were repeats from the day before. Eight phrases per day doesn’t mean much unless you know approximately how many it is out of. For my research, like I mentioned before I used the homepage which contained approximately 100 headlines. So eight phrases out of about one hundred isn’t such a bad ratio I would say. For what it’s worth, the impact on the readers would be minimal because nearly none of the inflammatory words used shed any light of negativity and the few that do, well those can be worked on.

            The second portion of my analysis of your website really honed in on your ability to truly reveal to the public the important news coverage. I looked at both your top story and the headlining pictures to see if the coverage was more focused on the events occurring only in the United States or if msnbc.com ventured out into more of the world news arena. Turns out that on two of the five days the top story had involved world news, not just news from the US. An interesting twist on this however was that the lead pictures on the pages, five out of five days were those from other countries and another leading story on the page. So far I have revealed that two out of five top stories have been about world news, leaving the other three about the US, five out of five top pictures have been about world events, and overall within the first five inches of the screen your reader is obtaining a great amount of global knowledge.

            As for my last piece of analytical data I would like to let you know in advance this is could be seen as just aesthetics to the untrained eye, however for all intensive purposes I took a look at everything on your website and this piece is truly clever. As a prominent media source msnbc.com took all precautious to appeal to every kind of active researcher, you even left an option for the researcher to show less or more stories in each category. Many websites have an alternative to this but what you did was cleaver because if someone clicks on wanting “zero” stories under politics for example to be shown, the politics button does not go away, it will stay almost as a reminder to stay well rounded in your research. When I compared it to foxnews.com it seems as their website fails in comparison. They give their researcher not many options nor is it as well organized. As far as construction of the website I think that msnbc.com has strategically planned this to the best of your ability. It actually enables something quite unique these days, a fairly well balanced flow of information to those who wish to access it.                 

Just remember, we are all entitled to our own opinions but as one of the leading sources of media for the public, the revealing of liberal views must be kept at a minimum. While MSNBC may have more a tolerant vision not all of your audience does, so to ensure that you are reaching the greatest amount of the population you can, try and keep all inflammatory words away from the political sections on your website. I value the work you put into your website and the views you bring to the table, but for the sake of the public and their coherent decision making continue to focus on the real news and do not get lost in the news full of hype and humor like some other sources. You don’t need an outsider to tell you that you are a prime example of world and US news coverage nor do you need anyone to tell you your website is cleaver in its construction, however this also serves as a reminder to continue to stay on track with bringing people real, and unbiased news coverage. Seeing as the website didn’t have access to the Executive Team link, please make sure this gets into the hands of someone who will read this letter, acknowledge its purpose, and possibly allow for some changes in the future.

Regards,

Meghan Denton