I recently came across an article written by former Knight News Challenge organizer Susan Mernit asking the question, “Can you Gentrify the Local Web?”

After creating the Oakland Local portal/aggregation site, Mernit’s group has quickly gained visibility and as a result has been accused of harming older area-specific sites including the more established Block Report Radio.

In researching traffic patterns after the launch of her site, Mernit hopes to answer the question,“Does Oakland Local, merely by existing and gaining visibility, inherently harm older local sites (particularly those few run by people of color) by diminishing their audience and attention?”

I found this fascinating. Traditionally gentrification is used to describe diaspora and one ethnic group displacing another from a finite geographic location. But we’re talking about the web here - real estate is cheap, so the finite resource being usurped is audience mind share.

The argument criticizing Oakland Local is then this:

a) There’s only so much mind share in a community to go around; and,

b) Those that share similar identities to the perceived community majority deserve amplified voice.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Firstly I like to believe that netizens have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and an increasing agnosticism regarding web information. And secondly I wonder - do most netizens consume news to look inwards or outwards?