“News is a way to get information”. That’s all my personal definition of news. At the very beginning, when I first came into contact with the word news, I had a very narrow understanding of news. I thought the news only refers to the news broadcast in the TV channel. However, later on, I learned that printed news, such as the news in the newspapers, can also be called news. Since then, my definition of news has broadened. Now I don’t think news is just new information, but a way we receive new information.
Today’s news plays a role in society in helping people gather information of all kinds. Some of the more important information is economic, political, or academic. Most of news audience are not relevant majors, they do not understand economics or politics, but news gives them a very low threshold to learn about these things. The news media will put together long articles or do multiple column interviews to explain to the people in very concise terms what happened. The coverage of news is very wide. After all, the news industry also involves peer competition. If there is no interesting news, the revenue will be very poor. News is just like a billboard to tell people how the financial industry is doing today, how politics is changing, or what new progress has been made academically. Although there is a lot of information that people don’t understand and don’t need to understand, the news still will provide it for them.
In the future, I think the role of news will become less important. With the development of science and technology, electronic devices will become more and more popular. The popularization of the Internet enables people to receive not only local news, but also news from other cities, overseas or other countries around the world. The output of news is of course limitless every day, and people can not pay attention to the news every day. If it was in the past, people may watch the news is the most concerned about what happened in the surrounding, what nearby crime happened, did the recent fruit and vegetable market price increase or not. Now, the emergence of news around the local will only lead to a reduction in the amount of useful news, it can be imagined that in the future useful news will be less and less.
Now I don’t particularly like to read news. On the one hand, as in “Why It’s More important Than Ever to Ignore the News”, author states that: “reading the news isn’t the same as taking political action”(Zeratsky). I totally agree with him, and I know the news can fool me into ignoring what I’m trying to do, or focusing on something else. I am a very easily swayed person and I often take things personally. Of course, these are all exaggerations, and I’m not tempted to donate money just because I read about a disaster happens in anywhere in the news. I just think what I hear is what I hear, and I don’t care too much if I don’t. There is too much news in the world to need to know. Important news, even if missed for a while, is bound to be mentioned again later. The second reason for I don’t watch news is because the news is now almost everywhere. Even if I don’t look specifically for news, all kinds of news are always in front of me. Every time I open social software or video software, there will be news push. Even when I’m talking to my classmates or friends, they often come up with news that I don’t know, “Hey, did you hear… ?” To sum up, I think that although I don’t pay much attention to news now, news is everywhere and affects me.
In the future, I’ll be less dependent on the news. As far as I am concerned, my major is physics, and I will continue to study physics in the future, so whether it is about economics and politics or other tidbits, it is not necessary to hear. Academic study, of course, guarantees wholehearted concentration. Although I understand that the news will not be important to me, I think I will follow some of the news privately. I think this behavior or mind can be explained by the “national responsibility” mentioned by Zaratsky. “If you care about what’s happening to our country and you want to do something about it, you have to keep up on the news”(Zeratsky). If people want to make a little contribution to the society as soon as possible, or make themselves appear to care about the society, watching news is a good choice. National responsibility, it may sound overly dramatic, but it is at least partly why I watch the news. In China, because it is a socialist country, Chinese people have been taught from their childhood to be concerned about the country and the people. I often think that I have studied for such a long time, what can I do for the society, that’s also one of the reasons why I chose to study physics.
“News consumption is not a new practice, simply one that’s become ever more accelerated and central to our lives”(Brett and Mckay). For me, the news doesn’t really has changed that much since ancient times. As I said in the first paragraph, news in my mind is a way to get information. I think what has changed is not the news, but the age. In the past, the Internet was not popular, and people could only know what information through the news. Now, people can search on the browser without the news. In the future, even if news becomes less important, I think it will only be because it has become obsolete as a form.
Works Cited
Brett, Mckay, Kate. “Is There Any Reason to Keep Up with the News?”. January 18, 2016. Last updated June 6, 2021.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-up-with-the-news/
Zeratsky, John. “Why It’s More Important Than Ever to Ignore the News”. Aug 10, 2018.
https://medium.com/make-time/why-its-more-important-than-ever-to-ignore-the-news-e50af6971daf
