Group Three.

We tend to assume that having more choices is preferable to fewer choices, especially here in America. You need look no further than your local Walmart to see that there are about 2453 different kinds of cereal. All in one aisle. The students I used to work with in Ohio used to be so overwhelmed at their first trip to an American store that they often just stood around and stared until I would force them to start consulting their lists. The important thing is, that we as consumers tend to buy the same things every week. Even though there are a ton of different kinds of cereal, I only eat honey nut cheerios. Its not that I don't like frosted flakes, or cocoa puffs. It just never occurs to me to buy them, even though I walk past them to get to the cheerios. I feel that it is the same thing with news media. Satellite tv, cable tv, you name it, they come equipped with enough channels to make your head spin. Most people, however, spend their time on a select few channels. People find the one they like, with the reporter or anchor or journalist that they like and trust, and they stay. They hear their people (who become opinion leaders) criticize someone, and they believe it. They hear that something or other is great, and again, they're all ears. Its comfortable. And who has the time to flip through all of those other bloody channels to find out if something better is on? 

The Powers and El-Naway piece entitled, "Al-Jazeera English and global news networks: clash of civilizations or cross-cultural dialogue?" really reminded me of some of the arguments we as a group had put forth about the nichification, or balkanization of audiences while we were discussing our group project. Even though we were speaking about the American public as a general rule, I don't see why it couldn't be expanded to reflect the international platform. While I wasn't necessarily surprised to read that people tend to become more dependent on their news media platform (think of the cheerios!), I was intrigued but the statement that viewers of Al-Jazeera English were "less dogmatic" over time. I would just have liked to have had that statement expanded on a little more- I know they went over it a bit but I would like to know what implications they feel this might have for the future- and also how might CNNi or BBC World go about emulating this success? I felt as though the article was a little one sided and slanted favoring Al-Jazeera without going into much detail about how CNNi and BBC could improve or where specifically they might make changes. Is it even possible? And if not, then what is the point? So what? Viewers of Al-Jazeera might be less dogmatic but does that mean that they are going to change anything? And if not, then what can be done? I think I need to start you tubing this network to see for myself.