The "Press-Sphere"

  Jarvis defines the “Press Sphere” as the more accurate model for describing the relationship between the “press” and “us.” Unlike the familiar model of yesteryear, in which we are fed the news through the nearly-inescapable filter of the press, the Jarvis model—which may well have been illustrated by a toddler—places the individual amid a sea of alternative sources of news in addition to the press.
  Foremost, what does he mean by the “press”? I feel that he cannot be limiting the definition of the word only to popular newspapers. Instead, he must be talking about conventional sources of news in general, including both print sources as well as major, televised, network news. What is the difference between a paper and a TV news broadcast, really?
  Another question I have is whether Jarvis is trying to say that sections are “out of date” because they are more integrated than they used to be. If that is so, then why did they work for so long?
  Though I have no trouble seeing where he is coming from in his will to explicate the changing relationship between the press and the individual, I feel he oversimplifies to an embarrassing extent. The press has never been the only filter for news. There have always been observers—if not publically commenting on blog pages, perhaps just injecting their own feelings into a word-of-mouth news account. There has always been a separation between the press and the government whereby the two can be considered distinct entities.
  I feel he is right in his diagnosis that the “press stands in a different relationship to the world around it.” A concrete example of this fact is that we’re frequently getting news about the news outlets today, making them less of the unspoken, enigmatic beasts that, in their prime, could once practically control public sentiment. The perspective of the popular media is, now more than ever, met by many with a careful attention to intent.
  In general, I think the implications of the “me-sphere” are not so far-reaching as Jarvis suspects. People have always been capable of exploring the details of a story before its beginning and past its end. The internet has just made the process a little easier.