New Tech: Create-Your-Own News Story

The idea of algorithm technology seems to have been taken to an entirely new spectrum by Netflix with a new interactive technology they developed. This interactive technology created for television allows viewers to "choose-your-own-adventure" and lets users have the option to alter the plot of a television show, so it heads in a different direction. 

This article focuses on the scenario of this technology being used with the news and the possible outcomes it might have. It is explained in the article that technology is already headed in the direction of self-selection with electronics available today. The author Rutenberg states"...people are being primed to shape the arc of the narratives on their highly personalized electronic screens to suit their own tastes, even if it means banishing inconvenient facts."  These current technologies already are leading to people having different and skewed views of the same information. This interactive technology could lead to even more contradictions of information in the news or even worse, news that is inaccurate based on the plot line you choose. 

In the article, Rutenberg describes a political news scenario that involves the use of this new technology and how three different "plot" options (Adventure A, B, and C) would play out. In this scenario he created, Adventure B is the plot option that is based on real life facts and is the most accurate account of the certain news story he chose. He goes on to describe, "One of the plots we’re talking about here is of the sort that democracy depends on — that would be Adventure B, the one based on established facts that exist in the real world — and the others are of the sort that threatens to undermine any shared sense of truth while driving us into our corners." I believe that this is a great explanation of the impact this type interactive technology would have with our democratic system.


This topic of this new interactive technology sparked my interest, because it seems to be a somewhat of a contradiction to one of the reforms that Bennett listed in our text. He suggest that "the use of interactive technologies" could help the media more effectively serve the needs of democracy, but this does not seem to be the case for the technology Netflix developed. In fact, I believe that it does the complete opposite of serve the needs of the democracy because it seems as if it could end up diminishing most shared unbiased information depending of the direction you choose. 


*News article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/12/business/media/mediator-personalized-feeds-news-choice-jim-rutenberg.html