Power of Social media to journalism practice

Social media is a term used to describe the type of media that is based on conversation and interaction between people online. It has changed the way news is being reported. It has changed the world and revolutionized how information is stored, published, searched and consumed. Social media has become influential as a communication and news-breaking tool.

News consumption today is not the same as it was at the start of the 21^st century when people waited for their morning papers or evening news on television. News consumption today is not the same as pre-internet news when people tune in to events happening around the world through 24-hour television news channels. More recently, a growing number of readers, viewers and listeners are going online for their news. Television, newspapers and radio are still here but there is a growing competition from interactive online media.

Social media has helped a lot in this transformation since it helps people become journalists. Hence, people (the audience) often customize the information provided to suit their interests. Anybody now with access to internet and basic knowledge on the technologies can become a publisher and share stories to the rest of the world. Today, many stories are received third hand, through Facebook posts or Tweets so that by the time a story is assigned to the reporter, the story in some form or another is already out there in the social media universe. The reporter now has to take that into consideration and find some angle to the story that is not yet being talked about.

A lot of tips or leads these days are from the web or what’s “trending” in social networks like Twitter, Facebook or based on search volume patterns in search engines like Google or Bing. This is radically changing the industry’s concept of what a scoop or breaking news is, and people now want information in real-time.

New-media technology is not only having a serious effect because of its impact on established journalism. It offers the opportunity to transform the news media into a more open, trustworthy and useful forum for information and debate. As news becomes non-linear and open-sourced, journalism will change and is changing. This is about more than posting a comment on a blog or sending in a photo to a website.

William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute termed social media as the emergence of the Fifth Estate. In a 2009 interview with Nic Newman, former BBC Media Controller, Dutton said “we are witnessing the emergence of powerful new voices and networks which can act independently of the traditional media. Highly networked individuals (helped by new platforms like social networking and messaging) can move across, undermine and go beyond the boundaries of existing institutions.” This is possible due to the presence of citizen journalists who act primarily as watchdog and corrective for the mainstream.

As much as social media networks open new opportunities for the news industry, they also raise the possibility of a specialized crisis for journalists and media organizations. Reporters are now required to submit stories for multiple platforms – television, radio, print and online. For a journalist in today’s media landscape, it is essential to be multi-skilled.