In early 2009, the one aspect that I took for granted--Internet-- began evolving into a fascinating creature for me. What was ritual and mundane became a matter of great interest. A simple observation on Facebook; that personal psychologies are revealed better online than during face-to-face interactions and how we as human beings all crave for attention (who has not been taking Facebook quizzes and waiting for comments, eh?) changed the way I viewed the web. Catering to this innate desire to be heard, to communicate, to learn, to share are new media technologies. The dynamism, the live nature and instant connectivity thriled me to no end. "What is the time there?," I would ask my friends in the United States everyt ime we chatted on Gmail and would feel utterly fascinated by the physical time-space difference and yet the closeness the medium helped achieve. What was virtual? What was real?
When the 26/11 attacks happened in Bombay (I hope a lynch mob doesn't chase me with pitchforks for not using the right name, but I always liked the name Bombay better), I resorted to reading blogger opinions and Desipundit links over Newspaper and TV reports that were saturated and carried sensationalism and disregard for ethics to a new high.
Once I was part of that growing tribe that used the internet to communicate and voice their opinions on mainstream media and talk about the subaltern too. I still am. Today, I am experimenting with the web-technologies and learning how to use them to source news. Tomorrow, I will be part of the mainstream media which used to push news down the readers' throats but is being forced to change because of a revolutionary tide in cyberspace. Tomorrow I will be all three at once.
I used to wonder how newspeople gathered news. This blog is a tiny attempt at understanding the process in the context of a new media journalist. Hence, this blog is called Instant Coffee, because it moves away from the traditional methods of sourcing news and is Really Simble Syndication. How simble is gathering news online? We shall find out soon.
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