Thoughts on media and audience

One of the key points that I research is how people use media.  It's not something we think about a lot, but I think it leads us to some new ways of thinking about the media.  One interesting take comes through in a nice essay by Anand Giridharadas in today's New York Times about how foreign reporting isn't what it used to be. He recounts an interview with a couple in India who didn't mind sharing their story with an American reporter but were reluctant to let their friends and neighbors know.  He tells them that stories on India in the Times are read more by people in India than readers in America.  It's true across the board.

Today we use the media in ways we've never thought of before. Not only do I read the Times and Washington Post online daily, but London's Guardian, my hometown newspaper (the Vincennes Sun-Commercial), parts of the Indianapolis Star and Bloomington Herald Times during basketball season, and the Ahmedabad Mirror on a regular basis. That's not counting jsonline.com, which I check several times a day.  I also have all stories on several items, such as new media and newspapers, routinely routed to me so I visit another dozen or so newspaper sites a day.

As Giridharadas indicates, that breadth of audience means we should report differently than in the past.