Is a lack of social currency killing newspapers?

Jack Shafer weighed in on slate.com with an opinion about why newspapers are losing relevance and popularity. Shafer proposes that the news is no longer a form of “social currency,” which can be used to demonstrate shared points of commonality. Certain knowledge would score points with others, and serve as valuable signals to demonstrate shared interests. This is unlike the more popular concept of “social capital,” where value is stored literally in the relationships between people.

While it is doubtless true that people use knowledge as signals to each other about shared outlook and values, gaining access to socially useful information doesn’t encompass the wide range of reasons for retrieving and engaging with newspapers. DeFleur & Ball-Rokeach’s Media System Dependency theory, for instance, considers information resources to be able to satisfy goals of understanding, orientation, and play.

The assertion that minutes spent reading the newspaper are being lost for time spent on social network sites is also a little simplistic. Certainly, people are acquiring information online for a multitude of reasons, such as convenience and immediacy of retrieval. The role of news as an expert resource is also up for debate. Jeff Cole from the Center for the Digital Future believes that people will generally trust anonymous sources over experts, while Sue Cross of AP online believes that experts will still give news the edge it needs.