Social Media and the Future of the News
My group was talking today about how social media has influenced reporting, and it made me start thinking about the way the news is developing with the advent of the internet. Gone are the days when the average person would come home after work, turn on the radio, and listen to the news accepting whatever he or she was told without questioning the source. In a world where Twitter, Youtube, and other social media can spread eyewitness news at lightning speed far before it reaches the networks, channels like CNN are turning to Twitter for viewer feedback in order to seem relevant. In my opinion, however, this only shows the viewers how irrelevant the news networks are becoming. Social media lets people participate in their own stories instead of hearing them from someone on television. Why turn on the TV to hear about the protesters in Iran when you can go on Twitter and interact with someone who was holding a picket sign?
Some people are skeptical about this modern way of reporting news, but I think it can only result in good. Of course not every piece of news received via social media is going to be correct and many will be biased, but in my opinion this has always been true of news networks as well. Social media enables people to use hundreds of sources to inform themselves about an event instead of just two or three, which can only be healthy for the mind - we will soon be forced to think critically about every piece of news we hear and read, creating our own story of how the world is instead of blindly accepting someone else's. The news of the future will require the everyday person to interact with, respond to, and participate in the story of what’s going on in the world every day, and I believe that this kind of reporting will result in more intelligent and compassionate consumers of media.
Some people are skeptical about this modern way of reporting news, but I think it can only result in good. Of course not every piece of news received via social media is going to be correct and many will be biased, but in my opinion this has always been true of news networks as well. Social media enables people to use hundreds of sources to inform themselves about an event instead of just two or three, which can only be healthy for the mind - we will soon be forced to think critically about every piece of news we hear and read, creating our own story of how the world is instead of blindly accepting someone else's. The news of the future will require the everyday person to interact with, respond to, and participate in the story of what’s going on in the world every day, and I believe that this kind of reporting will result in more intelligent and compassionate consumers of media.
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