An article on the BBC World News with the headline “India students suspended for rude Facebook messages” is published amidst many recent articles which seem to have focused on the negative effects of taking too much liberty with the web. I’ve noticed a huge increase in articles that pertain to Facebook or some mother social networking site a lot lately, especially articles about people suffering the consequences of using these sites as an arena of slander. Does this increasing number of articles about Facebook reflect a general trend of people being less and less discreet on it and suffering the consequences? Or is it due to the popularity of Facebook and the generally wide readership that such an article would receive since 500 million plus people have an account on the social site?
The New York Times published an article today called “Employment Picture Dims as Government Cuts Back”, a headline which is so unsurprising that it’s newsworthy. There have been such a large amount of these stories about the depressing nature of the economy that, while I once used to read them for their novelty of their content and to keep up with the world economy, I am so accustomed to seeing headlines such as this that I simply glaze over them and look for something more new and exciting to read.
An article in The Guardian reads “Tuition fees and student loan costs should rise, says Browne review” discusses the imminent increase university fees from £3,290 to £7,000. While this is absolutely nothing compared to American students, such an increase for the English education is outrages, showing more than a 200% hike in price. If I were an English student, this would seem utterly outrageous to me, and I’m sure this article would invoke a more more visceral effect on me and the policies of PM Cameron’s deep budget cuts. This article also made me realize that rarely do I read articles about American university tuitions rising, although I’m sure they are news worthy. Perhaps this is accounted for by a cultural difference in what we consider to be a higher level of news or not. Since Americans already sacrifice so much money for college tuition, an increase in $5,000 dollars for tuition at a private university perhaps wouldn’t have such an outraging effect on readers. However, in England, where education is much more accessible if one has the proper test scores, such a change would be highly alarming and radically different from their old system of having their entire education paid for by the government. Perhaps this symbolizes a more Americanized trend in the British university system.
Really good, Julian. I appreciate your observations and am glad you're reading both british and american papers. they have such different styles. And it's amazing isn't it, how one constantly wants the NEW. even though we may know following hte economy is important, it's hard to read the zillionith story about how it stinks. Something to think about when you're coming up with story ideas yourself.
ReplyDeleteB+