News curation as an antidote to information denialism
(Translated from Portuguese with the help of Google Translator and Grammarly)
The continuous multiplication and expansion of social networks on the internet gradually reduces the role of journalism in the production and publication of news, while at the same time forcing professionals to increasingly play the role of curator of information. This is a new model for exercising the profession that seeks to reverse the so-called information denialism, the way found by an increasing number of people to avoid the disorientation caused by the news overload on the internet.
The exercise of journalistic curation of information is a process that still faces resistance because it implies the gradual abandonment of professional culture in force for almost 200 years and focused on the production, formatting and publication of news.
The classic routine of journalism will not disappear as it will survive in specific segments of the profession, especially in large print newspapers and television news. However, the trend towards news curation seems a process with no turning back. This is what can be deduced from the avalanche of news produced on social networks and conventional journalistic vehicles, responsible for frantic flows of numerical data, facts, events and opinions that confuse and disorient readers, listeners and viewers.
In the same week, readers, viewers and web users had the chance to get news from the trial of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, the explosion of protests in France, the consequences of the rebellion of the Wagner group mercenaries in Russia, the parliamentary inquiry about the extreme right actions in Brasília, last January, and the worsening of the conflict between the Biden government and the Supreme Court of Justice in the United States, to name only the most talked about cases.
There was no lack of subjects capable of attracting the public’s attention, but this was not enough to break the gradual and continuous decline in audience ratings both in the written press and in audiovisual news programs. It’s just that, paradoxically, in the specific case of the current news avalanche, journalistic production and public interest walk in opposite directions. The cause lies in the overwhelming majority of people’s inability to deal with so much news, which leads many people to ignore the news. This phenomenon worries journalists and has been labelled as news denialism.
News curation is one of the few alternatives available so far to face the growing number of people looking to disconnect from the news avalanche. It is a way of filtering information according to the needs and desires of a group of people concerned with receiving only the data, facts, events and opinions of their direct interest. The practice is already widely used in the fields of economics, arts and technology, but it is only now beginning to be applied in journalism as an antidote to the disorienting effects of the oversupply of news.
The news avoiders
According to the latest annual report on the situation of the press in the world, produced by the Reuters Institute of Journalism, 41% of Brazilians, around 82 million people, admitted that they are averse to news, a term freely translated from the English expression news avoiders. In 2021, no less than 54% of Brazilians admitted to fleeing the news agenda of the press. The drop was caused by the 2022 presidential elections. In the United States, for example, news avoiders make up 42% of the population, one of the highest rates among rich countries.
The avalanche of information on the internet is causing structural changes in news consumption that have not yet been fully perceived by journalistic companies or the public. Companies because, in the battle for survival, they throw themselves body and soul into the mad race for larger audiences, betting on the super offer of news as the main strategy to ensure paid advertising. For its part, the public ends up avoiding the news as a basic resource to survive the informational disorientation in the chaos of the internet.
Several companies on the internet have realized the threats embedded in information denialism and launched news curation projects, as is the case with Google News, Yahoo News Digest, Flipboard and Circa News. These are partially successful experiences according to South Korean researchers Haeyeop Song, Jaemin Jung and Youngju Kim, authors of the article Perceived News Overload and Its Cognitive and Attitudinal Consequences for News Usage in South Korea.
They support the thesis that news curation is an effective alternative to combat the consequences of people’s difficulty in dealing with the oversupply of information. But the proposal still faces resistance among journalists because it will require a redefinition of its editorial priorities and practices of journalism, and also a new model of financial sustainability. But these are topics for a future article.
