Consuming News Is A Conscious Choice
When viewed as an ecology, news is not a product to be consumed but a conscious act
to engage with and produce shared information that has value in a community: This
is how cultures and societies create their histories.
In this systemic cultural context, news is no longer viewed as merely a hierarchically
derived economic transaction but as a progressive and egalitarian oppor
tunity, responsibility and challenge for citizens to create and build community
through genuine dialogue. A simultaneous focus on both consumption and production—
a genuine ecological approach to news—allows us to open up public
discourse to the collective level in new ways. When viewed as a system and an
ecology, consumption of news becomes a conscious choice involving knowledge
generation, information creation, and public distribution. It requires the audience
to question and it shifts the location of news judgment from the externally oriented
editor to the internally focused individual.
An ecological mode of news puts quality not quantity in the foreground.
Consumption of news, as defined here, is a conscious choice necessitating informed
thought. It sheds a different light on the traditional concept of news judgment. It allows the audience to question, and it requires its participation.
The Writings of Christine M. Tracy 