Are we going backwards?

Once you start reading this week’s blog you might get the idea that I am on another rant but I do hope that it’s true and that you can understand why nowadays I stay away from the comment section of most websites and why I don’t touch forums anymore.

Today I will be looking at the news media and the way in which headlines are used to gain read ship and how the younger generation and current generation can't seem to understand how it all works.

First off I will admit that I never took a media course while I was at school but I did spend two years helping my friends out with their coursework and learning some very basic, if not obvious knowledge behind media. 

Now if we take a moment to looking back in time you will see that if you wanted any form of news you only had two ways in which to get it, one was from newspapers and magazines and the second was from the scheduled television times for the news. Now the easiest way of getting the news was from papers and magazine but it also bought with it a choice. Every paper and magazine had its own view point and that they needed to come up with away to get new readers and keep the ones they have already collected. The way in which they did this was to have exclusives and bold headlines that where eye catching and sometimes unbelievable.

When it comes to newspaper you can now understand why their headlines are always so bold and why the front page will always have the most catchy headlines and a stories that they believe their view ship what’s to read. Now when you are next out and about pop into your newsagent or supermarket and take moment to look at newspaper stand, what is the first think that your eyes are draw too? I will be honest with you that ninety percent of you will be draw to bold text that covers the front page and that if the headline appeals to you then you are more than likely to pick up that paper and read the rest of the story.

 
If we jump back to present day you will notice that everything I have said so far still happens to this day but with only a few changes when it comes to the internet format. (Yes the internet is readily available and a lot of people read it.) If you go to a news website you will still see the bold headline and a very small amount of text that starts off the article and like I said earlier if the headline says what you want it to say you are more than likely going to click on the link to read the rest of the article.

Now this is where it get very interesting and the reason that I say this is because if you happen to be like me you will read an article that appeals to you but you want take it at face value. Why is this you may ask? Simple I know that the story is from a view point of that person and that if I was to read the source that they link at the bottom of the page I will end up reading that as well. If it doesn’t take me to the source I will spent a bit of time reading up on the news event before drawing my own conclusion, this is what I would like to call not taking it at face value and find out what the true is.

As you could guess, articles are used to draw their views and new readers to their site, which in turns boost the traffic to their site and the way in which they do this is to twist articles to their own view point and this is where I get a little bit lost. Why do people that know that the story has been twist go on to throwing hate comments to the site and their readers? If you already know that the story has been twisted and is telling their views what they want to hear, why leave comment saying that they are misinforming you and that they are a bad company. As I said earlier, the story and the headline are there to draw you in to read what that person’s or companies view point is on the topic. If you do not agree with it then leave the site and go somewhere else for your information.

I hope that kids and adults that should know better by now understand two things now, one being that news outlet, company and website are out to get you to read and stay at their site which in turn get them more money and second that if you want the true you sometimes have to go looking for it yourself.

Until next time