Title: 11.4 The Effects of the Internet and Globalization on Popular Culture and Interpersonal Communication – Understanding Media and Culture
Headings: 11.4 The Effects of the Internet and Globalization on Popular Culture and Interpersonal Communication
11.4 The Effects of the Internet and Globalization on Popular Culture and Interpersonal Communication
Learning Objectives
Electronic Media and the Globalization of Culture
China, Globalization, and the Internet
New Media: Internet Convergence and American Society
Internet-Only Sources
“Live” From New York …
Premium Online Video Content
The Role of the Internet in Social Alienation
The “Internet Paradox” and Facebook
Meetup.com: Meeting Up “IRL”
World of Warcraft: Social Interaction Through Avatars
Social Interaction on the Internet Among Low-Income Groups
The Way Forward: Communication, Convergence, and Corporations
Key Takeaways
Exercises
References

Content: The conventional argument claims that the anonymity and the echo chamber of the Internet undermine worthwhile news reporting, especially for topics that are expensive to report on. The ability of large news organizations to put reporters in the field is one of their most important contributions and (because of its cost) is often one of the first things to be cut back during times of budget problems. However, as the Internet has become a primary news source for more and more people, new media outlets—publications existing entirely online—have begun to appear. In 2006, two reporters for the Washington Post, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, left the newspaper to start a politically centered website called Politico. Rather than simply repeating the day’s news in a blog, they were determined to start a journalistically viable news organization on the web. Four years later, the site has over 6,000,000 unique monthly visitors and about a hundred staff members, and there is now a Politico reporter on almost every White House trip (Wolff, 2009). Far from being a collection of amateurs trying to make it big on the Internet, Politico’s senior White House correspondent is Mike Allen, who previously wrote for The New York Times, Washington Post, and Time. His daily Playbook column appears at around 7 a.m. each morning and is read by much of the politically centered media. The different ways that Politico reaches out to its supporters—blogs, Twitter feeds, regular news articles, and now even a print edition—show how media convergence has even occurred within the Internet itself. The interactive nature of its services and the active comment boards on the site also show how the media have become a two-way street: