The advent of the web as a mainstream medium of communication and transmission is changing the rules of literature irrevocably. For those who have, for some time already, felt that literature and the word is in decline there is news: the online world has seen an absolute explosion of words. All the crap that people used to talk in private, with no one to record for posterity, has now become publicly recorded in new formats en masse. Blogs, Twitter feeds, Youtube videos, to mention just a few, collect words in unbelievable volumes.
Without a doubt this is rich material for scavengers of literary material, but today I want to focus on another aspect of these phenomena: the change in the nature of news. If news once was reportage of "events that happen in the real world", we may now recognise that the status of news has changed. Whereas we still read and watch news - perhaps more than ever before - it has become almost primarily a source of entertainment. News as a way of finding out about events that affect us (wars, elections, new policies) have for many consumers become relegated to the weather report. Instead, news is sought out for its spectacle, drama, and entertainment value.
In the age of the web everyone has become newsworthy, and the playing field has levelled. Why should news about a potential cure for a rare form of cancer be more important than the real and present anger a Youtube user feels when his pop hero has been insulted by other Youtube users?
These and other ponderable questions may be provoked by the News Roundup, a look at the online world today.
Welcome to today's Roundup!
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