Everybody is conscious about the fact that journalism is moving from the
real printed newspapers toward the online network. Many people check out the
news online instead of actually buying a newspaper. Probably everybody notices
this shift, but have you ever heard of the website Blendle.com? It is a small
start-up of redefining how people are paying for journalism. It is a new phenomenon
that started in The Netherlands, where folks can read all their newspapers and
magazines online and where they only pay for articles that the actually read. I
will explain how it works, blendle.com offers all kind of different newspapers
and magazines and instead of buying the whole paper, they made it possible to
only buy a particularly article that you are interested in. In short, they
present to you all different kinds of magazines and newspaper online where you
can browse through the papers. If you see an article that you would love to
read you just press on the article and there you go. So actually you only pay
for the actual reading on the website where most articles are priced
between €0,10 and €0,89 and the payment
is completed with one click on the button. If you did not liked the article you
just paid for you can easily press on a bottom, which refund you payment. You
only need to choose from a list of reasons why you did not like the article,
and the money will be transformed back on your account. Blendle.com is doing a
good job, the websites has already more than 220.000 users in The Netherlands
and they are planning to launch soon in other countries as well. You can not
only choose your own articles to read but there’s more, you can also follow
your friends and famous stars to check out what they think is interesting. It’s
a new way for the next generation to discover and read the greatest articles
from all kinds of newspapers and magazines. Thus, read and share your preferred
journalism on Blendle.com
Below, you can watch a short video of how the website works, unfortunately it is in Dutch.
It all sounds as the solution for the chancing shift in journalism,
making journalism still profitable and give the folks the opportunity to read
what they would like to know. But then the question that arrives in my head is
about the point that Cass Sustein (2001) made in his article, “The Daily we, Is
the Internet really a blessing for democracy?” about the risk of
personalization and individual control, which can reduce the importance of the
“public sphere”. It is about the point
that Sunstein made, “My only claim is that a common set of frameworks and
experiences is valuable for a heterogeneous society and that a system with
limitless options, making for diverse choices could compromise the underlying
values (Sunstein, 2001).” (
Sunstein’s article in a nutshell, he sees the growing power of consumers
filtering what they want to see as something that can be a danger for the
public sphere. He is talking about personalization, limits their exposure to
topics and points of view of their own choosing. If people only can choose what
they would prefer to see, read, and listen to, groups who share the same point
of view can get more extreme and could establish group polarization. Which
concretely means that group discussions with like minded people and lack of
alternative views breeds increasing extremism. Furthermore, Sunstein claims
that it is important to have a “public sphere” where people will be confronted
with different views and opinions so that people will understand each other
better and relativize more instead of being more extreme. Does the new
phenomenon Blendle.com creates a bigger individual control and reduces the
public sphere?
This is just a brief introduction for a discussion about a new way of
journalism and if Internet is really a blessing for democracy?
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