During the 2008 National Conference on Citizenship, panelists Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution and Sean Parker, Founding President of Facebook, agreed to disagree on the subject of gatekeepers in media. Bill Galston surmised that perhaps, decades ago, newspaper editors may have provided an environment for elevated discourse by deciding what news should or shouldn’t be fodder for public consumption? Were Americans better off several decades ago not knowing all the peccadilloes of their political leaders? Is more information equivalent to better information? Do we need to resurrect the gatekeeper in a high tech information society where every citizen with a cell phone, pocket video camera or other device has the potential for breaking news?

Parker and Galston continue to raise intriguing questions as the conversation segues into the Internet’s role as a technology that can both propel hyperactivity and be a resource for fact gathering and reflection.

Galston calls the almost knee-jerk reaction to 24-hour news “hyperactivity” and suggests that the Internet exacerbates this response. Parker, on the other hand looks to the Internet as a source for deliberative fact finding.

”My reaction is to go online and keep reading.” Sean Parker says.

After viewing the video, see what some of NCoC’s experts in the field have to say.