A further thought regarding e-readers, pertaining particularly to newspapers
Is it cynical of me to think that mainstream media outlets are pushing the e-reader’s cause so that they can continue to have control of ‘the news’?
In Rupert Murdoch’s speech about blocking News Corp’s online content from those who don’t subscribe, the thing that struck me was his comment that papers would survive by giving the people the news that they wanted (the implication being that this would be done through a digital means).
I couldn’t make sense of this. Perhaps I’m being naive by thinking that news is current events, both local and international, that the public should know about and there should be no degree of what we should and shouldn’t hear about. Of course, papers do every day what I suppose Murdoch was alluding to. News of Haiti dropped from Australia’s papers pretty quickly (from front pages, at least), that is until the enormity of the event became known. So already there we have automatic news filtering being done based on ‘news cycles’ and what publishers believe readers want.
E-readers will no doubt allow for a more personalised experience, enabling news outlets to give you, the reader, the news that interests you. Which is all a long way of saying mainstream media outlets want you to continue to go to them and e-readers – despite there being every possibility that an e-reader, iTablet etc. is/will be nothing but a streamlined laptop without a keyboard – is what they’re pinning their hopes on. It’s their way of giving you last year’s Christmas present in new wrapping paper.
There’s also a large, outspoken element of the web which likes to see anything technologically new and anything new that is Apple. Online, it is this kind of stuff that makes news and causes fusses. But I*’m wondering if the majority of people who are not of that boisterous online party really want an e/i-anything.
*I, who while interrogating the need for the e-reader have been thinking and reading an awful lot of free online content about it…
Lead Igloo
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