The Future of Newspapers 

The newspaper industry as a whole will continue to be a form of news media; however, small local newspapers are slowly fading away into the shadows of news media giants. As mentioned in the video, the internet has played a major role in the slow digression of the newspaper industry. Publishing newspapers online is cheaper than printing newspapers. Also, paid advertising, a key source of revenue for newspapers, is rapidly being replaced by free advertising websites such as craigslist online.

If newspapers were to disappear, I don’t feel like the news industry would be the same, and other media would not be able to adequately fill that gap. On a national level, media would be fine without newspaper; however, on a local level, a key part of the community that should be covered, would not be, and therefore affect the local area. Even now, there are instances, as was mentioned in the video, where local newspapers are disappearing. In these cases grassroots journalism would come into play, which is what I am reading about for the book review assignment for this class. Reporting the news would then fall into the hands of everyday citizens which could be done via blogging or the utilization of social networking sites.

In order for the newspaper industry to survive, it will have to identify distinct newspaper elements that are essential to its readers, and exploit them in order to keep its audience.  The simple fact that a newspaper is tangible may be enough for some people. My communications teacher expressed this sentiment in class one day while we were discussing this very issue. The newspaper industry may even want to start borrowing its ideas from other media. For example, maybe newspapers will start mimicking its layout after newspaper website interfaces. 

Youtube video: G-male

I found G-male to be very entertaining while at the same time informative. G-mail is not my main emailing account, so I don’t get to interact with g-mail enough to experience the scenarios laid out in Youtube clip; however, I do use Youtube (owned by Google), Google chrome, and Google’s search engine quite often, so I am familiar with the caching, and advertisements that were satirized in the clip.

Google’s tracking tactics do not bother me because, they do not inconvenience me. In my eyes,  I suffer no immediate negative consequences as a result of their tracking tactics. If, anything, they make my life easier as far a caching the websites I have visited goes. However, after watching the G-male video, I was a little creeped out. Seeing the tracking tactics personified helped to put into perspective how Google could become a problem for some people.

I feel like because Google is a respectable company, I trust them. And because I trust Google, I don’t mind if they use my information to send me advertisements, cupons, or reminders about events I have coming up on my calendar.

I don’t see anything wrong with what Google is doing. They can’t track you, if you don’t supply them with information to track.  The video claims that “Google delved deep into your personal life, “ but how personal is your life if you choose to place such information on the internet? It’s no longer personal, and therefore free game for Google to track and use.