Social Networks for News Media Distribution

The connectivity and availability of the Internet enables truly grassroots networks to disseminate news at the personal level. In such an environment where news abounds and anyone can publish and distribute, a method is needed to filter the overwhelming quantity of information to locate news items that are relevant to the individual. Currently search engines are the primary method to locate online information, but they require a centralized database for querying and assume that searchers can specify their interests a priori. Traditional news media such as radio and television disseminate news to a generalized audience. These media fail to cater to an individual’s particular interests and do not offer a wide variety of sources. In this paper, we propose an online system that employs a social network as an alternative means of news media distribution. A ‘word-of-mouth’ social network can be used to augment an individual’s newsgathering capability by both locating more news than an individual could alone and filtering the news to supply only those items that are relevant to the individual. This method is a veritable news revolution where what constitutes news and its audience is dynamically and organically determined as individuals participate in the system.