WrongSide

One of the cool features of my new WordPress blogs is a snazzy little feature, called “clicks”. You find it under your overall blog stats and what it does is allow you to see which links people have clicked in your post. I am usually reluctant to reinvent the wheel when I am writing and so, rather than writing massive posts, will attempt to link my reader into further information or substantiating information about what I am writing about. The links aren’t meant to be exhaustive, rather jumping off points to more info or fill in the blanks – like how did I get from point A —> Conclusion B. My links hopefully show my trail of thought, much the way Hansel and Gretel relied on breadcrumbs.

Interestingly, what I have come to see is that not many people click the links. I’ve been asking around and other bloggers tell me the same. Even when they provide clear and accessible supporting or developing information via links, a considerable number of people fundamentally disregard them and fail to click.

This is important news to me, another example of just because I click my way through the world, doesn’t mean that others do. It goes to show you can never assume anything and you might have to do a little work if you want other people to try things in a different way. I have been thinking lately about the ‘new media’ as it relates to my own writing endeavors and had written a bit about it in an earlier post, Can’t Stop Progress, which was really a bit of commentary about Arianna Huffington’s post, Journalism 2009: Desperate Metaphors, Desperate Revenue Models, And The Desperate Need For Better Journalism. One of the things she speaks about is ‘old media’ and the uneasy (antagonistic?) relationship it has with new media such as aggregated news, link economy, excerpts and expansions, citizen journalists and the way people have begin to directly interact with the news/media. As Arianna Huffington says in her post;

“News is no longer something we passively take in. We now engage with news, react to news and share news. It’s become something around which we gather, connect and converse. We all are part of the evolution of a story now — expanding it with comments and links to relevant information, adding facts and differing points of view.”

These are exciting times. We are becoming increasingly aware of the way that information and news is constructed and that we can change the way that news is approached or understood by simply clicking a link, Googling (or whatever other search engines float your boat) for more information or a different perspective. We comment, we share, we expand and develop information simply by the way we interact with it. We don’t have to wait for someone to spoon us their version of the news, we can go out and hunt and gather until we have built our own news.This is cool stuff if you are up with the approach.

Seems a fair few people are not yet turned on to this way of moving through their reading. They may still be used to and comfortable with passive exchanges of ‘news’ and information. Turn on the tv and channel 7 tells you what is happening (or at least what they think is happening or want you to think is happening). Have the paper delivered, or turn on your favorite radio station – same thing. We sit, listen or watch and have information ‘done to us’. Certainly this passive consumption of information can be less work and less challenging. We can listen, watch or read, call ourselves informed and be done with it. It is certainly less time consuming!

When I am out reading in cyber-land, it seems so easy to see the difference between people who are ‘old media’, vs ‘new media’. People’s comments invariably reflect whether they are curious, seekers and inter-actors of information or whether they are passive recipients of information and that bit of information often tells me whether it is worth my time to interact and communicate with them, or simply move on. I’ve come to this place after one too many ‘conversations’ with people who have very entrenched ideas about something, and will not extend themselves, even a bit, to find out more information, consider new information – or just generally inform themselves before stubbornly persisting in a position. They refuse to … click .. the …link.  Harsh perhaps, but true.

Of course, if old media approaches to information and news are your preferred choice – that’s cool. There’s plenty of that out there and I think there is a place for it. I ‘do’ the broad news in this way and it works just fine.  However,  this is my chance to send a little cyber-wave to the kindred people who are already merrily clicking along the new media ‘Information Exchange’ and make a heartfelt plug to encourage those readers who are not yet on the road, to boldly go forth into “New Media” land, click links, and interact with your reading!  You’re gonna see me adding a little reminder to *please click the links and interact with your reading,  in my blogs because I hope you will consider what I write as a jumping off point, rather than an end point. I sure do. And if you should find different information, or go down another path with the information I am linking, please do share your thoughts, and links – I’d love to click them!