Digital media is changing the way we receive, discuss and distribute news. Due to the low costs and easy accessibility of production tools available today, there exists an eclectic and widespread range of both the kinds of people that are participating in the production and distribution of media and the ways in which they are participating. The online communications community is becoming increasingly important; “creative production and expression is inseparable from social communication,” as almost anyone can write, edit and widely distribute various forms of media that were previously produced exclusively by large companies with access to expensive equipment and distribution methods (Flanagin and Metzer 2008, p. viii). Digital media has drastically changed the ways in which we find and assemble other people with similar interests, increased the amount and types of information and news sources that are accessible to us and expanded our ability to discuss and debate opinions and ideas on a large scale (Flanagin and Metzer 2008, p. 5). Social media, in particular, is changing the structure that determines how large media organisations are started and the ways in which they influence audiences. This new structure allows anyone and everyone to be leaders and influencers through mass publishing; gone are the days when traditional mass media companies hold all the power (Blossom 2009, p. 85).
Interaction with the news on social networks is in many ways a reflection of the ways in which we used to relate with traditional forms of media. Past generations might have discussed and debated current affairs by talking about what was in newspapers or what was on television; today, people are continuing those discussions and debates on the Internet. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, for the top producers of news to become social networkers if they want to stay in touch with their audience, for in today’s world, “something as simple as the comments posted on a Facebook profile wall will have validity as a crowd-sourcing mechanism (Becket 2008, pp. 52-53).
The social networking site Facebook was created in February 2004 by then-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. He created the site from his dorm room as the web equivalent to the printed student directory distributed to freshmen, which included photographs and biographical information about students. Half of Harvard’s student body had signed up within two weeks; by May, it was widespread in other esteemed campuses. In the spring of 2005, Facebook had more than one million monthly visitors from Ivy League colleges alone (Angwin 2009, p. 121).
According to Hitwise, which measures web traffic, Facebook overtook Google as the most popular website in the United States in March 2010. Since late last year, in fact, data gathered by Hitwise has shown Facebook steadily gaining on Google in terms of weekly visits (Gusten 2010).
It is clear that Facebook is hugely popular, but what has also come to light in recent months is that people are turning to the website for reasons other than just socializing and networking; it’s value as a credible source for news is becoming evident. Facebook is the #4 source of visits to news and media sites—accounting for 3.52% of all upstream visits—behind Google, Yahoo and MSN. Facebook brings 350 times as much traffic to news and media sites than Google Reader does. However, social media still has gains to be made. Facebook, Google News and Google Reader combined are responsible for less than 5% of the total traffic to news sites (Kirkpatrick 2010). But with a 200 percent growth in online consumption of news since 2001, the potential for social media as a growing source of news is astounding (Beckett 2008, p. 21). “Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category,” according to Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins (Foremski 2010).
Some of the largest media organisations in the world are capitalizing on the benefits that Facebook plug-ins offers. ABCNews.com, for instance, has seen a 250% increase in referrals from Facebook. When users who are logged onto Facebook visit CNN.com, they will see a module in the corner of the page, displaying stories that their friends have shared or commented on. Similarly, The Washington Post has initiated a “Network News” feature on its website, incorporating a module that allows users to see what their Facebook friends are reading without leaving the Post’s site. Jennifer Preston, social media editor of New York Times, announced that the online newspaper has been working closely with Facebook on site integration, and that she hopes to add a layer of personalisation and social activity (Tenore 2010).
Malorie Lucich, who works in corporate communications and public relations for Facebook, reminds us that “your friends are often the best filters you have for surfacing meaningful news,” citing Facebook as the medium from which she learned of Michael Jackson’s death, President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and the Balloon Boy phenomena. She also points out that the 2010 Haiti earthquake demonstrated Facebook’s ability to quickly gather and distribute information on worldwide events; not only was news of the disaster posted on Facebook and spread around the world within hours, but over forty thousand people became fans of the Haitian Earthquake Relief group in order to connect with loved ones, promote fundraising and activism and find facts and figures. ABCNews.com and France 24 used Facebook live stream boxes on their main websites, so readers could discuss the disaster, organise relief efforts and post their actions on their status. The New York Times generated a separate Haiti Facebook page, with resources, live updates and coverage from their own journalists on site (Lucich 2010).
In her Facebook blog titled “Creating Your Personalized News Channel,” (liked by over 2,000 people and followed up with over 800 comments), Lucich encourages users to take full advantage of the ways in which Facebook can be a viable and continuous source of news. Most major news outlets now have Facebook Pages, and by “liking” these pages, one can stay connected with journalists, reporters and even anchors. Facebook users can then create a “News” list from the home page, which displays only news-related updates in a single feed. With one click, all stories posted by news outlets that one is a fan of are shown in the feed (Lucich 2010).
Facebook not only allows easy access to a wide variety of news sources, but it encourages users to share and discuss the news, as well. Facebook Connect is an external site that news organisations such as the Huffington Post, The Washington Post and USA Today have integrated into their websites and iPhone applications. It allows people to sign in with Facebook logins, see which articles their friends are reading and participate in discussions using their Facebook identities (Lucich 2010). This is an important aspect of the social networking world, because as Charlie Beckett (2008, p. 13) points out in SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So it can Save the World, social media is more than simply interacting with others:
People want more than just consumer journalism…they also want more opportunity to debate their world. They want a more varied and informed level of commentary upon it. They want to know more about the rest of the world as well as much more about themselves and their immediate environment.
Facebook provides users with all of Beckett’s aforementioned aspects of news. One has the ability to read what others have to say about issues and stories, and then has ample opportunity to actively participate in debates on these ideas, through posting comments on walls and Discussion boards. Furthermore, the commentary is varied and informed, with contributions possible from Facebook users from all over the world and from various levels of expertise, experiences and cultures. Reading and participating in debates and discussions with friends can also teach users about both themselves and their immediate environment.
Daily Perfect is another resource for Facebook users wanting continuous news. It is a personalised news website that provides news stories customized to people’s interests and hobbies, based on the content of one’s Facebook profile. By signing into Facebook Connect on the Daily Perfect website, news is automatically filtered and tailored to the individual, so that users no longer need to perform searches or browse through the hundreds of stories available on any given news website (Lucich 2010).
The Facebook newsfeed is one of the most important ways in which Facebook circulates news. It provides users with updates about friends’ activities; for each user, Facebook filters though 30,000 possible updates, choosing the sixty that are most likely to be the most interesting and relevant for the member (Angwin 2009, pp. 228-229). If a friend posts a link to a news story, and other friends have “liked” it or commented on it, that post is deemed more important and relevant and will be published on more members’ newsfeeds. Thus, the more activity an action or post has, the more it is circulated.
News stories on Facebook are more commonly broken and distributed throughout the network by status updates, groups and sharing links on walls. In fact, numerous stories have been revealed on Facebook before major media outlets picked up on them. In February 2010, for example, Australian twins found out that their brother had died in a car crash by reading about it on Facebook. Angela and Maryanne Vourlis were shocked to read status updates such as “RIP Bobby” on their friends’ walls, and only after ringing the local police station did they discover that Facebook was right; their brother was one of three teenagers involved in a fatal crash in rainy Sydney (Hough 2010).
The impact of social media on journalism has even inspired policy changes in some of the world’s largest media organisations. Reuters, for example, implemented a social media policy in March 2010, commanding journalists not to break news stories on any platform (especially sites such as Twitter and Facebook) other than the wire. It also encourages journalists to “think before you post” and to gain manager approval before setting up profiles on social networking sites. This new policy indicates that that even large media organisations recognise the impact of social media outlets, acknowledging that staff use of social media may put an organisation’s credibility on the line and “threaten hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias.” The policy also encourages journalists to use separate accounts for professional and private activity, aware that staff often use social networks for gathering news (Reuters 2010).
The nature of social networking in a globalised environment has changed the way events are played out in digital media platforms. No longer are events framed simply within a national context; rather, they are spread throughout the world in a matter of seconds to a multitude of countries, cultures and peoples. In Media Events in a Global Age, Couldry, Hep and Krotz (2010, p. 224) deem such events “eventspheres,” citing Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign as an example. In September 2007, a Facebook group titled “Stop Hilary Clinton” gained more than 418,000 members, the most popular Facebook group either for or against a presidential candidate. The page for the group outlined details of Hilary’s campaign, event developments, photos, statistics, audio and visual productions and candidate biographical and platform information—all provided by citizen journalists through linkages to credible websites. Furthermore, the group provided the most up-to-date images, updated from mobile phones.
That same year, political instability and unrest led to demonstrations in the streets of Myanmar, led by Buddhist monks. The media was largely controlled by the government, which did not provide meaningful and accurate coverage. Citizens, however, with mobile phones and hidden video cameras, were able to secure footage during critical moments of the protest. They found ways to transfer images and sound from their phones to the rest of the world through the Internet and social networking sites. Facebook, specifically, had a major impact on the level of awareness and activism geared toward the people of Myanmar. In September 2007, a nineteen-year-old Canadian college student teamed with a college graduate from the United Kingdom to create a support group on Facebook. The group, consisted of more than 370,000 members, including renowned CEOs, all of whom gained awareness and were motivated to respond though Facebook (Blossom 2009, pp. 189-190). A headline that was only worldwide news to begin with because of mobile technology and social media platforms was transformed into a global cause, again due to the issue’s ongoing presence in a social media outlet—Facebook.
The commercial importance of social networks and digital media was confirmed in July 2005, when Rupert Murdoch and News Limited bought the social networking site MySpace. Today it remains important for many businesses, organisations and individuals to maintain awareness of social networking sites such as MySpace, and often it is vital for these people and groups to become actively involved by creating their own pages and profiles (Goggin 2008, p. 247). In 2007, Murdoch was asked if he thought that newspaper sales were declining due to his readers turning to MySpace. “I wish they were,” he responded, “but they’re all going to Facebook at the moment” (Angwin 2009, p. 251).
Indeed, the Internet has revolutionized the way we receive media. News magazines and radio news have lost readers and listeners to the Internet, and newspapers have experienced lower circulation rates in almost every part of the world for the last ten years. Time spent online in the five biggest European markets (UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) overtook time spent reading newspapers in 2006. This, along with the rising age of the average newspaper reader, indicates that there is a strong link between the Internet and the declining circulation rates (Van der Wurff 2008, p. 95).
Generation Y, also called “Net Generation” or the “Millenials” are more likely to use digital media as their first go-to source when researching a school project. They are also more likely to use Internet news sources instead of traditional printed media and to turn to social networks when meeting friends (Flanagin and Metzer 2008, p. 6). Young people get their news from friends and social networks such as Facebook or MySpace, not newspapers or television. Those who are spending time on the Internet are spending less time watching TV, because social networks are not only more fun and more interactive, but allow people to have a firm sense of community and connectivity that mediums such as television and newspapers lack. Shane Richmond, a technology blogger for The Daily Telegraph, agrees: “It allows us to feel part of something.” (Beckett 2008, p. 52-53).
The credibility of social networks has also been examined. Flanagin and Metzger (2008, pp. 9-10) define media credibility as the “relative credibility or believability of various media channels through which a message is sent,” and remind us that while traditional forms of media, such as newspapers, are often thought to be more credible than the Internet, some studies have found that there is actually little or no difference in credibility between traditional and digital forms. In fact, the web may actually be seen as a more credible source to those who are after specific kinds of information. Indeed, today’s media environment is increasingly made up of websites created by large organisations, blogs, wikis, social networking sites and numerous other digital media platforms that are connected to portable devises and tools.
In social networking sites such as Facebook, users gain credibility by directly citing organisations and sites that already have a respectable reputation. A “credibility transfer” occurs when recipients use the credibility of one medium as proof for the credibility of a specific story, article, text or piece of information (Flanagin and Metzer 2008, p. 12). For instance, a Facebook user might voice an opinion on a recent event or issue, and provide statistics or data revolving around his or her opinion by linking a research-based website to the page.
Not only are the Facebook pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal credible merely by reputation, but they can be seen a trustworthy peer by fans because the creator of the content has the exact same capabilities as an everyday member; they have the same technologies, the same amount of space and the same control over content as every other member on the site, giving large organisations authenticity as a friend and peer. They aren’t trying to push content out to the masses louder than anyone else’s message so much as they are merely allowing others to access the information that they make available. There are no aggressive advertisements or loud slogans in the middle of the text, as in traditional forms of media (such as online news sites) and the advertisements that are present are off to the side of the page and clearly labelled as such.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 64 million people in the United States—22% of the population—use social networking websites. The number of people worldwide that use social networks is estimated to be about 274 million. Six of the top ten most popular websites in the world are focused on social media, according to an Alexa.com service that ranks websites based on Internet service provider traffic statistics. Social media has become the foremost focus of online audiences and communications networks (Blossom 2009, pp. 7-9).
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