Thing 12 Do you Digg?

Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Mixx are changing how the networks and major news organizations market and edit and changing how the news consumer interacts with the news. After listening to the video, tours and poking around in the "Who are We" tabs, it's clear that most of these sites are the work of folks experienced in traditional news. These sites are linked to specific news outlets and have their own culture. I get much of my news from traditional sources such as the StarTrib, local TV 10 o'clock news, National Public Radio, PBS, and CBC Radio (Canada) and the BBC daily. In email I get newsletters and websites from organizations that I support which direct me to news sources. An example is ASCD News Briefs, which is skimmed/read each day, and filters education news primarily from newspapers. One of the reasons I consume so much news is that I like to hear, read, and see varied aspects and perspectives of the news and try as much as possible to sample sources.

Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Mixx are relatively new (2006 onward). I couldn't locate the demographics of who uses each site and what groups/categories tend to lean toward each such as business, political parties, elected officials, union members etc. That interests me because the participants who in turn will attract others and shape the focus of what will be read. (This whole discussion makes me want to teach social studies.) Currently from my foray into these sites it appears most are balanced by a wide range of participants.

After reading "Gonzales Aides Broke Laws in Hiring, Report Concludes" in the NY Times, I posted it Mixx. What happened next was interesting. A similar story had been posted from CNN so a box came up asking me to vote for the CNN post rather than post the Times story. It explained about not overloading the site. I went ahead and posted the Times story, looked up the CNN story and then tried to get both by use of tags. It was a good exercise in seeing how this works.

Depending on who reads these sites political messages of groups could rise to the top as most popular but can also be refuted by others. VERY INTERESTING for citizen participation in a democracy.