The Internet surpassed radio as a source for political news in the United States last year as more people went online to keep up with the presidential election campaign. So says a new report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults used the Internet to get political news last year, up from 4 percent in 1996 and 18 percent in 2000. Television remained the dominant medium for most voters, but 18 percent said they got most of their political news from the Internet, compared with 17 percent who said they turned to the radio for their news.
Tag Archives: Early Net Culture
Rex Hammock explains why podcasting is new hot thing
“The reason you’ve heard of podcasting is because no one first “demo’d” it at a conference and no corporate marketers were involved. But, when something is going to be big. Really big. You rarely see it demo’d. Usually, when something is big, it’s, well, boring and obvious…and, at first, not cool.”
Mainstream media suffers from “freedom envy”
Peggy Noonan (WSJ.com) wonders if mainstream media suffers from “freedom envy” where bloggers are concerned:
Bloggers have an institutional advantage in terms of technology and form. They can post immediately. The items they post can be as long or short as they judge to be necessary. Breaking news can be one sentence long: “Malkin gets Barney Frank earwitness report.” In newspapers you have to go to the editor, explain to him why the paper should have another piece on the Eason Jordan affair, spend a day reporting it, only to find that all that’s new today is that reporter Michelle Malkin got an interview with Barney Frank. That’s not enough to merit 10 inches of newspaper space, so the Times doesn’t carry what the blogosphere had 24 hours ago.
This is a really good piece on blogging that –once upon a time– I might have forwarded to the reporters working in our newsrooms. I’ve stopped doing that. With one or two execeptions, our reporters are clueless and/or threatened by the whole notion of blogging. Don’t get it. Don’t want to get it.
The wireless Super Bowl
“On the consumer side, the league sees big revenue potential in wireless. The league is moving content from its NFL Network cable channel and Sirius Satellite network to the Internet to bring more dimensions to stories. It’s the first year the Super Bowl is on satellite radio, and the league plans to make audio of the radio calls for the Pats and Eagles available for fans to download to their MP3 players for $10. And when someone calls their wireless phone, Eagles fans can hear defensive end Jevon Kearse tell them “This is Jevon Kearse. It’s time for you to pick up the phone.” [via RAIN]
BostonHerald.com
“My Very Own Radio Station”
Michael Bazeley, writing in the Mercury News (My Very Own Radio Station), does the best job of ‘splaining the podcasting thing I’ve come across:
“Thanks to a new technology called podcasting, I’ve turned my iPod into a personalized radio station, loading it with talk shows and cutting edge music that I’d never be able hear on traditional radio stations. It’s transformed my listening habits overnight. Although it’s new, I’m convinced podcasting will transform the way many people consume media, just as blogging and TiVo have. When you can program your own radio station, carry it with you anywhere and pause and restart it at will, who needs mainstream, advertising-supported broadcast radio?”
His piece quotes Doc Searls who believes:
“Podcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it as well.”
Hey, I’m just posting this shit so I can say I told you so.