Journalism has lost control of its platforms and means of distribution. In many ways, that’s good, because it has brought to an end the monopoly journalists once held on the news and information we need to govern ourselves in a democratic society. We should be deeply concerned about the mysterious process that determines what we see or don’t see in our Facebook newsfeeds.
But the age of information gatekeepers did not end with the rise of the Internet. In fact, the lowering of the moat was only a temporary blip. Now we’re living in a new age of gatekeeping. Our masters are social media — and Facebook in particular, both because of its dominance and the way it manipulates what we see.
Last week Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School, delivered an important speech at Oxford about the journalistic implications of social mediation. It is worth reading in full. Also worth reading is Mathew Ingram’s analysis. Just as earlier generations fretted over what made it (or didn’t make it) onto the nightly network newscasts, today we should be deeply concerned about the mysterious process that determines what we see or don’t see in our Facebook newsfeeds.
Read the rest at WGBHNews.org.
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