How Social Media is Shifting Journalism
Social media plays a huge role in how journalists and news companies are sharing information and stories to people all across the world. Almost everybody has access to a smartphone nowadays and uses some form of social media in their day to day lives. Social media has changed the way we create news because of the wide availability of news platforms that can be reached by a few taps on our mobile devices. News industries have changed their ways of sharing news with hundreds of millions of people through popular social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook.
News has always spread quickly, but with social media in the picture this means that the news travels much faster than ever before. The outdated concept of submitting an article for the daily newspaper is more or less obsolete. Thanks to websites like Twitter and Facebook, they provide the freedom to post news online at any time of day. Journalists are supposed to report breaking news as soon as possible. Social media plays a major role because you can now share snippets of news with millions of people as soon as they become available, rather than waiting for the whole story to be published.
The way these industries distribute the news and information is sometimes determined by what platform they choose to display the news. For example, Facebook uses a software algorithm to decide which publications get the most attention. Whether the post includes videos, certain images or even if the publication of the news was directly uploaded to the Facebook network, Facebook tends to prioritize what it wants to on the platform. Because of Facebook’s distribution capacity, publishers are modifying not just the forms of content they produce (more videos), but also where the content resides online. Facebook isn’t controlling what journalists deem news, but it is altering where viewers find it and how they receive it.
Through social media, it has never been easier before for journalists to establish a public profile and connect deeper with their following. This goes for news industries using social media platforms as well because it allows them to directly interact with users if they choose to do so. Social media’s such as Twitter for example, allow journalists to give their opinion instantly on certain topics floating around online. Like mentioned before, the use of social media provides the opportunity for the news companies to quickly advertise their articles with their following online rather than people having to go buy a newspaper to see headline stories.
People are now getting the chance to participate and learn more about how social media is playing a huge role in our society and more importantly in journalism. As you can see from the Center for International Media Assistance’s tweet, there are events that are held in order to further discuss how social media is impacting the way journalists incorporate their work with social platforms. In addition, the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media held a virtual webinar as well in order to further discuss this viral topic.
Based on the tweet above from Business Wire, we can see that companies journalists are fond of using social media to interact with their following as well as provide news information quickly and efficiently to the public. That is the power that social media can have for journalists and news industries.
Overall, social media has accelerated the transformation of a generations practice that is journalism. But social media isn’t going to stop there. With technological advancements on the rise every day, we can only expect there to be more efficient and effective ways of getting news and information out to the public. Social media is quick, easy to use and free to the public which goes to show the role that it plays in journalism.
