Has News Been Changed by Social Media - Assignment Example

NEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA by Student’s Name Course Professor Date News and Social Media In the last five years, news has seen a radical change in the ways it is presented, accessed, aired, analyzed, and even compiled. These changes have been brought about through advancements in technology that has seen the migration of audiences towards digital news and the era of mobile and multi digital devices. Most people nowadays own laptops or desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. These devices enable the owners to access internet whereby they can read the current news through social media and through the websites of the different newsrooms. This has seen the change in the news presentation and attention achieved because of social media. The majority of Americans therefore receives news at least via one digital web-based device, that is, the computer, desktop, or even the tablet. Another common way that people receive news is by browsing through the news organization websites and the apps that they provide. Most people type and search information by searching through the home page of the particular newsroom and not the topic of the news. This is by those people who get their news through their computers and desktops (Castells 2001, p.89). The other groups that use the digital devices that include the smart phones and the tablets mainly obtain their news through social media by following links that have been posted on Facebook or twitter or looking up recommended sites and URLs. Social media has become a very significant part of modern civilization and journalism as a whole. The social networks like Facebook, twitter, Google+ among other social networks are the defining trait of how integrated our social interactions have become (Allan 2006, p. 49). These social networks have ensured that individuals are much aware of the world they are living in and have created a completely new world where people are free to express their opinions and share with peers, friends, and the whole world. Social media has further changed the way news are aired and filtered. This is evidenced through the new ability that people now have to control information and generate our own stories. Social media has ensured that there is democratization of news whereby individuals can vote for the stories they want covered and push out the ones that they do not want. This has ensured the ability to decide the news to be aired is no longer on the hands of the news presenters and their managers but on the public. Therefore, it is correct to claim that social media has ensured empowerment of the public in relation to the news that they can access and those that can be covered (Carpenter 2009, p. 311). Furthermore, the public can post their opinions on the news that are aired so that the newsrooms can know the levels of their presentations and the number of viewers that they have. Social media has further influenced journalism by becoming a very important source of news, where the news channels give updates on significant happenings all over the world thereby ensuring that news are more accessible. Socialmedia has also enabled greater political awareness by playing a great role in different countries elections and inspiring the political unrests in some countries like Egypt (Deuze 2003, p. 312). Social media has influenced journalism by changing the whole dynamics of marketing and ensuring that companies are more consumers centered through the many media interactions. This has altered the dynamics of marketing through understanding the need of the market through the market itself. News has been greatly affected by social media both negatively and positively. Social media has enabled several aspects, which include collective intelligence whereby an organization has the ability to leverage the experience and wisdom of an entire workforce by posting their problem online and analyzing the different responses received. It is also easy to find people and information because of the existence of emails and static intranets that enable communication and collaboration between people in an organization. In social media, anyone can be a leader whereas employees have a voice. This is because employees and managers can share what they are working on, look for new ideas, interact freely, and feel that they are a major part of their organization. There is increased transparency and flatness brought about by the fact that everything that happens in an organization is posted online. Additionally, there is serendipity, which is the ability to find or come across valuable pieces of information that can be used in solving a problem. According to Deuze (2007, p. 46), the traditional process of gatekeeping and the ways that news were being handled in the past has been transformed through the various advancements in technology and the emergence of social media platforms. News and newsrooms nowadays are not only about giving news and only reading publishing. Rather, it has been transformed to a platform that ensures discussions by the public, deciding, and voting for the kind of news that they would like covered and the kind and level of coverage that they expect from the newsrooms that are providing the info. Therefore, social media has transformed the traditional gate keeping methods by ensuring that the power of choice is in the hands of the consumers of information rather than the newsrooms as it was originally. The overturning of the traditional forms of news anchoring and news presentation can be evidenced from the fact that reporters are now able to join the many social networks available, converse with people and display their stories as a means of developing their own personal brands and curriculum vitae (Eugenia & Pablo 2010, p. 422). News organizations can create their own pages and websites, which enable them to pot news as soon as they occur. This has ensured that news is received as soon as it occurs and from credible sources and therefore the problem of having to wait until a certain time in order to receive news is done away with. Social media has also ensured that the newsrooms are able to tell first person stories by using the stories that have been posted and therefore changing the fundamental of having to go to the particular scene of the news to collect the news (Fenton 2010, p. 41). The newsrooms can estimate the number of people that are accessing their news and therefore design new methods of keeping the current audience that they have and ways of getting more audience and ability to maintain them. In the past, news generation and distribution was preserved for the people who had advanced in the journalism profession. However, this has greatly changed over the last couple of years with many people who have never studied journalism before engaging themselves in the process of developing and publishing news through online social media sites. This has greatly undermined the professionalism that journalism is about (Thurman 2007, p. 287). This has thus led to the abuse of the ethics and standards of journalism and thus quality has been eluded in the ways that news is presented to the public. Professionalism in journalism and quality of information can be only measured by the extent to which one adheres to ethics and the standard issues that are relevant to this profession and the level of commitment to public service that is displayed (Zixue 2006, p. 29). Respect for principles, truth, accuracy, objectivity, fairness, and accountability is important to ensure professionalism in journalism, however it is quite a challenge for the unregistered journalists that only post their news on social media to adhere to all this. The professionalism of the field of journalism is undermined by the fact that in social media, anyone, and everyone is a publisher, which makes it difficult to determine the authenticity and credibility of the news posted. The information posted in the social networks can greatly impair and frustrate the presentation and recognition of the profession of journalism because audiences are not able to get well-tested and verified news, which makes it difficult to know the newsroom to trust (Jaana & Sari 2004 p. 391). Furthermore, the people who post their news on social media and have no training at all on the best journalism skills are bound to undermine the journalism profession and the basic principles that come with it. However, the importance of social media cannot be underestimated since it has played a great role in helping generate significant amounts of information, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. In other countries, social media is the main source of information and it is even funded by the government. It also provides a platform for exchange of ideas, expression of opinions and communication (Meikles &Redden 2011, p. 136). The most important aspect therefore is to ensure that the people who decide to use social media to post their news should adhere to the ethics and standards that come with the profession of journalism. Newsrooms that are seeking to evolve therefore need to recognize both the changes in technology and behavior that are prevalent today and take a strategic and key approach to changing how their employees conduct their work. This is because embracing the new technology that involves social media will not get you far if you do not have a strategy. The ability to engage and connect with people and information anywhere and anytime and on any device has fundamentally changed everything about the traditional methods of working, leading, and management. Reference Allan, S 2006, Online news: Journalism and the Internet, Maidenhead, Open University Press. Carpenter, S 2010, ‘A study of content diversity in online citizen journalism and online newspaper articles’, New Media Society. Castells, M 1996, The rise of the network society, Malden, Mass, Blackwell Publishers. Castells, M 2001, The Internet galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, business, and society, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Deuze, M 2003, ‘The web and its journalism: considering the consequences of the different types of news media online’, New Media & Society, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 203-230 Deuze, M 2007, Media work, Cambridge, Polity. Eugenia, M & Pablo, J 2010, ‘Online news consumption research: An assessment of past work and an agenda for the future’, New Media & Society, vol. 12, no. 7, pp. 1085-1102 Fenton, N 2010, New media, old news: Journalism & democracy in the digital age, Los Angeles, SAGE. Jaana, H & Sari, P 2004, ‘Interactive Uses Of Journalism: Crossing Between Technological Potential And Young People’s News-Using Practices’, New Media and Society, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 383-401 Meikle, G & Redden, G 2011, News Online: Transformations and Continuity, Palgrave Macmillan. Thurman, N 2007, ‘The globalization of journalismonline: A transatlantic study of news websites andtheir international readers’, Journalism, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 285-307 Zixue, T 2006, TheInterent in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society, Routledge. Read More

This has ensured the ability to decide the news to be aired is no longer on the hands of the news presenters and their managers but on the public. Therefore, it is correct to claim that social media has ensured empowerment of the public in relation to the news that they can access and those that can be covered (Carpenter 2009, p. 311). Furthermore, the public can post their opinions on the news that are aired so that the newsrooms can know the levels of their presentations and the number of viewers that they have.

Social media has further influenced journalism by becoming a very important source of news, where the news channels give updates on significant happenings all over the world thereby ensuring that news are more accessible. Socialmedia has also enabled greater political awareness by playing a great role in different countries elections and inspiring the political unrests in some countries like Egypt (Deuze 2003, p. 312). Social media has influenced journalism by changing the whole dynamics of marketing and ensuring that companies are more consumers centered through the many media interactions.

This has altered the dynamics of marketing through understanding the need of the market through the market itself. News has been greatly affected by social media both negatively and positively. Social media has enabled several aspects, which include collective intelligence whereby an organization has the ability to leverage the experience and wisdom of an entire workforce by posting their problem online and analyzing the different responses received. It is also easy to find people and information because of the existence of emails and static intranets that enable communication and collaboration between people in an organization.

In social media, anyone can be a leader whereas employees have a voice. This is because employees and managers can share what they are working on, look for new ideas, interact freely, and feel that they are a major part of their organization. There is increased transparency and flatness brought about by the fact that everything that happens in an organization is posted online. Additionally, there is serendipity, which is the ability to find or come across valuable pieces of information that can be used in solving a problem.

According to Deuze (2007, p. 46), the traditional process of gatekeeping and the ways that news were being handled in the past has been transformed through the various advancements in technology and the emergence of social media platforms. News and newsrooms nowadays are not only about giving news and only reading publishing. Rather, it has been transformed to a platform that ensures discussions by the public, deciding, and voting for the kind of news that they would like covered and the kind and level of coverage that they expect from the newsrooms that are providing the info.

Therefore, social media has transformed the traditional gate keeping methods by ensuring that the power of choice is in the hands of the consumers of information rather than the newsrooms as it was originally. The overturning of the traditional forms of news anchoring and news presentation can be evidenced from the fact that reporters are now able to join the many social networks available, converse with people and display their stories as a means of developing their own personal brands and curriculum vitae (Eugenia & Pablo 2010, p. 422). News organizations can create their own pages and websites, which enable them to pot news as soon as they occur.

This has ensured that news is received as soon as it occurs and from credible sources and therefore the problem of having to wait until a certain time in order to receive news is done away with. Social media has also ensured that the newsrooms are able to tell first person stories by using the stories that have been posted and therefore changing the fundamental of having to go to the particular scene of the news to collect the news (Fenton 2010, p. 41). The newsrooms can estimate the number of people that are accessing their news and therefore design new methods of keeping the current audience that they have and ways of getting more audience and ability to maintain them.

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