The Common Student: Facebook & Word-of-Mouth?

It was surprising to go through and read all of my classmates' posts about where they get their news. For the most part, the majority of my peers happen to come across most of their news digitally. This was the most common way of getting news, though it was not the only way. A few people mentioned having news applications on their mobile phones. Others mentioned listening to the radio while driving, but not all of us have cars here on campus, so the prevalence of hearing news through the radio sort of dwindled because of that. More than one classmate mentioned receiving news through the "word-of-mouth" method or hearing it from someone else (who probably heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else). Reading these posts, it became increasingly obvious to me how much we live in an "entertainment age. One classmate mentioned how a lot of us use informal sources and how the news itself is presented in a way that is considered a "tabloid style." It's meant to catch your eye, capture a sliver of your attention. 

It was almost comforting to me to read that I'm not the only one who really only started reading the New York Times regularly because it was a class requirement. I don't have anything against the news, I'm just not the type to seek it out on a regular basis. I just happen to stumble across it, which several other classmates mentioned as well. It was also cool to read how others do spend their time going to news websites and actually read the print paper before coming to college here. 

Does this mean that we are lacking in civic literacy? I don’t think we are. I do think that the definition of civic literacy has changed because of the influence of the internet on news. We often only see the big picture such as breaking news over the little picture or local news. Some people agree with Hedges and may feel that literacy is falling and disappearing. We do not read print-based news as often, but rather we find most or all of our news via the web.  Nicholas Carr may have a few things to say on this topic as well. We are in an age of “skimming activity.” We often just skim through news articles until we find something that is interesting enough to continue reading. I think that many students do not make enough of an effort to keep up with the news, whether it is international or local. The majority of us wait for the news to come to us rather than seeking out the news ourselves. Does that make is illiterate? I guess that depends on how you see it.