Assignment One - Defining News

 What does it mean to you?

Growing up the news was always something that "old people" did, it never really made much sense to me. My parents had it on every morning like clock work, and I would listen off and on as I got ready for school. I never took any of the information heart other than I could use some of the blurbs I heard to sound "cool" on the playground. However, as I grow, mature, begin working, and go to school, I can finally see the importance of that noise in the background on my school mornings. 

News is defined to us in the dictionary as "newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events." This basically means, that if it's worth sharing, it will be shared. In the society we live in, information is power, and everyone is power hungry. Personally, I am in living in a digital news era and have never had any interest in going out on the porch, grabbing the newspaper, and reading every inch to get my information. Along with the broad definition for what news is, society offers and endless amount of ways to get news.

Often times the word, news, brings forth images of newspaper stands and news anchors with their coffee cups chatting about whats going on in the world today. However, news is so much larger than this. Initially sure, news began when criers were sent to campfires, town meeting, and market places to spread the word, but oh how it has evolved since then. If we really think about it, since the early days, everyone has always wanted to know what was going on, so the news became a way to get information to a mass number of people, who will then pass it on and so on. 

In our world we no longer need newspapers or word of mouth to receive our news, it is truly all around us. The little computers we carry in our pockets, purses, and backpacks give us constant information, that is news. Any sort of information that we didn't already know, is news. Social media, advertisements, and news apps are all forms of delivering news. The information of these platforms could be sports scores, political updates, or even the latest Tik Tok trend, all of these things are news.

As a student, and a young adult smack in the middle of the age of electronics, my definition of news is simply information that you want and do not have. My phone, friends, and social media are all platforms that can provide me with news, and they do all day every day. News has never been something that "old people" did and never will, we all accept process and share "news" in our own way. News is everywhere and it is everything.