CBC Spark: Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection

• Listen
• Need to realize that media out of context can be misinterpreted by others.  Need to have a conversation with those upset with us, rather than just saying they are "wrong"
• We get less international news than before from broadcasts (newspaper, newscast, etc.).  Broadcasts are giving us what we want (local news) rather than what we need.  We also curate for news that we already have an understanding of.  International news is important because we live in a globalized world.   
• Broadly, news/information comes from three channels:
• professionally curated (newspaper, newscast, etc.)
• our own searches
• social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
• Despite being able to look at any web site around the world, we are still very narrow-minded
• One problem is homophily:  Our friends typically have the same view and get similar news as we do 
• Language restrictions:  Most of us have no access to the part of Web created by hundreds of millions of Chinese people due to language issues
• Bridge figures - those that know two cultures equally well and can explain one culture to those of the other culture
• Difficult to find information via serendipity because Web is programmed to provide links to things we will like with great certainty (that is, similar to things we liked before).  This is caused by the risk-adverse nature of  the Web driven by advertising