Post #7: "Many Faces"

In Sharon Meraz' article "The Many Faced 'You' of Social Media", Meraz looks at the democratic potential of peer-production social aggregator sites like Digg and Reddit. Through the lens of user engagement and news sources, it is said that open systems can support egalitarian democracy that is open to the contributions of the average citizens. In a nutshell, users can vote for which stories they find the most interesting, and these stories will appear on the front page for more people to see.

Meraz conducted some research and came to several conclusions. Reddit and Digg focused more on citizen media sources more than traditional media. On the other hand, Netscape and Newsvine focused more on traditional media sites. Overall, she concludes that these social media sites are attempting to re-balance the power of traditional media entities within social media environments. It's clear that these kinds of sites exist to encourage the political engagement and conversation of citizens.

Reddit's slogan at the top of the page reads: "The voice of the Internet - news before it happens". Users have the power to pick and choose what news topics they prefer and which ones they deem more important than others. This relates to what we discussed in class about customizing sites and news feeds to suit our own personal agenda. If I were interested in a particular political view, I could adjust my daily websites or index sites to cater to it.
I think that these kinds of sites offer an interesting perspective on the new movement of journalism. Along with the rise of citizen journalism, citizens now have the power to choose what stories they think are important. There are definite pros and cons for this movement, but I find myself asking this simple question: Is hand-picked news really news?