HOW CITIZEN JOURNALISTS USING THE SOCIAL MEDIA
AFFECT THE ACTIVITIES OF TRADITIONAL MEDIA PRODUCTION AND HOUSES AND HOW THE
ARE STRATEGIZING TO MEET THIS CHANGING TREND IN MAS MEDIA WORK.
In the ever-expanding and fast-paced of new
digital world, new media is rapidly gaining complete ascending over traditional
media. The interactive platform it provides for widespread discussion and news
postings which can occur instantly seems to attract a large mass of users by
the minute.
Jay Rosen defines citizen journalism as;” when
people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their
possessions to inform one another”. A very simple definition by Tony Rogers
says; “citizen journalism is when private individuals do essentially what
professional reporters do, report information”. The concept of citizen
journalism is based on public citizens playing an active role in the process of
collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The
emergence of modern technology in this face-paced system of things requires
citizen journalists to employ new and powerful platforms for communication to
foray into the competitive world of information. An effective method that has
been widely embraced by citizen journalists to fulfill these demands is the use
of social demands.
One may ask, what is social media? Well,
social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they
create, share and or, exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and
network. It could also be defined by the personal computing glossary as the
collective of online communication channels dedicated to community based input,
interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.
Examples of these social media are; facebook, twitter, blogs, Google+
and the likes. New media technologies, including the increase prevalence of
digital phones have made citizen journalism more accessible to people all over
the world. Due to the high availability of new media, citizen journalists can
report breaking news more quickly than traditional media reporters.
Traditional media refers to the old way of
spreading information. It may also refer
to the media used before the advent of technological advances like the internet.
Mostly, media that are often referred to as the traditional media are the
press, radio and the television. New media on the other hand is what many of us
enjoy using this day. As soon as you log in to the internet, the acquiring and
disseminating of information begins. It is digital and therefore it allow
unlimited number of people to connect at the same time. This is why new media
is such a powerful communication tool in our age. New media also expands our
need as a business owner to the world and allows other people to be fellow
marketers though social networking tools.
New media as an alternative media to the basic
media presents a massive change to the professionalized and institutionalized
practice of the mainstream media.
Unfortunately for traditional media, strategies used by them have been
adopted, polished to a maximum advancement and being used by the new media.
This makes the traditional media very colloquial when using it.
Also the social media used by citizen
journalist provides unlimited freedom of expression of one’s views and more
opportunity to explore than the traditional media. With this new diversity of
the spread of information, traditional media houses are highly threatened by
the rise of new media because it can lead to the close down of these
traditional media houses.
The evolution of social media has therefore
kept every media house on the edge of their toes. It has made the market very
competitive where by media houses struggle among one another for the maximum
attention of audiences. Seeing this, most media houses adopted some strategies
that will still keep them in business and not wear off like an old sticker on a
wall. Some of these strategies are; the use of new technologies such as a touch
pad flat screen television which can also be connected to the internet, an
electronic note book or tablets and a laptop in the dispersion of news. The use
of these technological artifacts by the media houses make audiences believe or
accept everything that is being given to them in the news. This is so due to
audiences now trusting the new media than the traditional media. A vivid
example can be the broadcasting of the evening news on both TV3 and GTV.
Although they are doing similar things, the presentation of information differentiates
them. TV3 news broadcasters come full equipped because they are endowed with
new technologies that make broadcasting easier in this new age, whereas GTV, ‘the
nation’s pulse’ has just upgraded itself to a flat screen television and
sometimes a laptop.
Also media houses realized that if they do
not use the social media to their advantage, they may not have information at
their finger tips. Now, most media houses have created websites, twitter
accounts, facebook accounts and the likes to get and disperse information
faster just like the a citizen journalist. They now use the social media to inform
audiences on new and up-coming activities they have. For example, Visat1, a
private owned television station in Ghana, really use the social media to their
advantage. It used the platform provided by Facebook to sell its programs to
audiences. Although it can be described as an infant in the midst of media
houses, it has the most effective Facebook page and also one of the most
effective websites comparing to other media houses.
Another
example is the Cable News Network popularly known as CNN. This media house is
known for the provision of news 24/7/365-66 throughout the world. It is able to
survive this new age because it employs the social media. Whilst news is been
broadcast live on television, the same news is being tweeted, shared on
facebook, their personal websites and other known websites. This is to help
target people who are always glued to the internet. Currently on twitter, CNN
has 13.7 million followers around the globe due to its frequent update of news. Not
leaving out media houses which practice printing, graphics and magazines like
the New Yorker, Times magazine, and the Ghanaian Daily Graphic also adopt some
social media such as; emails, websites, twitter and Facebook accounts and
enhance their image through them.
Now, media houses have improved on the
provision of credible news because they have realized that audience are not as
passive or dormant as they used to be. Therefore provision of credible
information is one of their biggest priorities. This is in order to keep their
audiences, gain more audience and win their trust in them.
References:
www.facebook.com
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