• by Kendall Allen , May 10, 2010

"How much better would we all be if we read for information, not simply validation?" This thought caught my attention recently, spouted randomly by a friend. There are nuances to it -- as we all have subtly different  standards for what counts as information or validation -- but it rings true in this era of constant cross-media and cross-platform consumption.

Honestly, what percentage of our collective activity is about gathering fresh information or perspective -- and how much is about finding confirmation of what we already believe? We've talked a lot here about the psychology of today's turbo mode of consumption and sharing, but this thought nicely frames a core question. Is our thirst for information or validation?

The Importance of Access & Context
The info vs. validation question played well with another conversation I found myself having recently. In fact, it's a conversation I've had numerous times in life. That is: how much context do we owe each other when we write, edit or share news?

Last week, a colleague and I were playing around with a small industry news collection for something we are creating.  We bandied about the question of whether or how to include some framing narrative along the lines of, "Why this is important." We're still debating the right way to do this.

Growing up in a newsman's household, I learned early that even the nation's most serious newspapers were written at specifically targeted younger "grade levels" to establish  connection with the reader. While this seemed bizarre to me even at that age, I could appreciate the  imperative to be accessible, especially by newspapers serving the public.

Later on, in journalism school, friends and I discussed how much back-story it was appropriate to sprinkle into any given article, to give a reader a leg up on the story. Funny, this conversation used to lead one of my J School sidekicks to scratch her eyes out, as she felt providing such context was an insult to the reader, who should have been keeping up with the news. Today, she is an extremely successful magazine editor who routinely blogs, curates, frames point of view and context for her public. I see her going at it every week. The socialization of media and of course its digitalization have opened the point of view.

I think about a favorite instance of effective spoon-feeding of context in The Week, a multi-perspective weekly magazine that assembles coverage of international news from many divergent sources. They've got a section called "Boring But Important." It rounds up essential happenings and provides a very quick take on their relevance to your life. It's slightly irreverent, yet always essential to an informed view: a mix of legislative news, key anniversaries, scientific news, and more.

Who's a Reader Anyway?
From having this "context" conversation over the years, I can tell you there are always mixed feelings about how appropriate it is to dial up or down the assist to the reader. But guess what? The identities of reader and sharer are blurred, and the flow of context and back-story has become socialized. Who's a reader anyway?

Looking at the here and now, with the current exploded environment around information consumption, gathering and sharing -- with people slamming through their RSS feeds, daily streams and keeping up 24/7 with their publics in social networks and in the Tweighborhood -- it seems to me people create their own context, at least at a macro level. And, while it may seem obvious to one person why another should care about any number of pockets of activity -- privacy legislation and the currencies of targeting; global content distribution; the state of mobility -- the onus for framing context is no longer neat

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