Online news questions

I interviewed ten people from different ages and ethnic origins on their online news comsumption. I found that most people I interviewed got their news from mainstream news sources such as The Times, The Daily Mail newspaper, BBC news on television etc. I found that generally, people working in the city tended to be mostly interested in political, economic and current events in the news and so therefore accessed news through newspapers and television mostly. I found that 18-25 year olds were the most likely to be interested in sport and celebrity news and so were more likely to access news online. Many people said that they found news stories from social networking sites such as Facebook and Hotmail news indirectly as they click on a headline if it interests them. People over the age of 50 were the least likely to use the internet for news and instead preferred newspapers, television and radio. Young people seemed to use niche sources of news the most, as they had various hobbies which they gained news regularly from. For example one 18 year old regularly reads a dancing magazine which includes news stories that would not appear in mainstream news but interests her. I also found that people's occupation influenced how they consumed news. People who worked in an office were much more likely to use the internet to find out current news whereas people who worked for example in the medical profession tended to read newspapers/magazines related to their area of work more.

Wikinomics

Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything is a book published by Don Topscott and Anthony Williams in 2006. It looks at how companies have become successful through mass collaboration and peer production. 

• Peering - Free sharing of files on the Internet
• Free creativity - People can edit and remix files on the Internet. Creative Commons provide licenses which protect intellectual property but allow others to remix material
• Democratised - Free creativity and citizen journalism 
• Thinking globally - Internet creates a public sphere where national and cultural boundaries are reduced
• Perfect storm - Combination of Technology, demographics and economics means it is impossible to resist Web 2.0

Sceptics believe that things aren't changing that quickly and that a lot of the world's population don't have access to broadband so thinking globally is not a reliable term.