Throughout the course of the semester we have been talking about the future of the media in today's world. Being in what Darrell M. West calls the fragmented media era-- the era of bloggers and online news-- we have to wonder what is next for the mass media. West himself suggests scenarios in which the media either becomes increasingly more fragmented, or reacts conversely by re-forming together and distilling back into fewer main sources. Personally, I think it more likely that the fragmented media will continue to become more and more fragmented; the popularity of blogs and the accessibility of news and entertainment online is too convenient and stimulating for the masses to die out any time soon. However, does the fragmented media necessarily have to be a bad thing? In my recent blogging I've talked about important things, such as the exposition of bullying through online video sharing or the use of Twitter for social change, that demonstrate how positive and useful the widespread accessibility of the fragmented media can be. Yes, it's true that now that just anyone can start a blog, it might become harder to find reliable sources, but this also works positively: because it's now so easy for anyone to access and spread media via the internet, stories that might not have been shared can now become publicly available. I think that in order to keep functioning in the fragmented media era we have to become smart about knowing our sources and finding credible information, and also learn how to use the widespread accessibility of the internet media to our advantage instead of simply seeing it as dangerous.
-Miranda
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