In a world where I can aggregate hundreds of digital news sources in a single application on my computer or iPod, or dart from one news site to the next on the web, why do I still read a physical newspaper published by one news company?
Economically it is dramatically cheaper to subscribe to free or low cost digital news sources than it is to subscribe to a physical newspaper, and yet, year after year I renew my subscription. As a student on a low budget, such choices are not insignificant.
My reasons for reading a physical newspaper seem to accumulate with time. Here are some of those that come to mind.
-I grew up always seeing my dad reading a paper newspaper. Role models are a powerful thing.
-I enjoy the fact that I can find myself relative to the paper newspaper. That is, as a physical object, my body is in spatial relationship to the paper. I am not sure where I am supposed to imagine my body being when reading electronic news sources. At best, I might position myself relative to a computer, but the webpages themselves seem to come from a non-place without perspective and depth; they just are. As such, when I read my newspaper in the morning at the table or in one of our reading chairs, I experience myself in a place that has a certain tactile feel and sensory routine that is sprawled across and arranged by the physical space. The internet provides me with a much more ambiguous experience.
-I think that the mediums that we write and read in do shape how we think. As such, I am not ready to see the end of print journalism. I think that something significant would be lost. So I will do my small part to give some revenue to maintain that industry.
-Serendipity. In a world where so much is available for customization, I appreciate the fact that I don't choose the stories that I will encounter in my morning newspaper. Therein, I maintain an ability to still be genuinely surprised and excited sometimes by what I come across in the newspaper.
These are some of my reasons for why I still read a physical newspaper.
I'm not ready to see the end of print journalism either! Even despite the mounds of newspapers that grow around the apartment and the cost. There really isn't anything like finding an interesting, well-written article on a topic I've never thought about or wouldn't have looked for. It's hard to find time to just wander around inside a newspaper, but the sounds bite news doesn't compare.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! With the last point about not filtering the news you get, were you referring to something like what Cass Sunstein called "The Daily Me", where we can literally get a news report that reflects more of who we are than of the world around us?
ReplyDeleteHabermas sees great importance in print media as the "backbone of the public sphere", where through its ability to decide on common issues of public discourse, the media holds a power that is important for a public sphere to exist at all. Digital media certainly raise questions in that regard as well...