At present times, people often use social network platforms as a news source however, it was not so 10 years ago, people would visit news sites to stay informed about local and global occasions. In this blog post, I would like to talk about how social networks are influencing traditional news resources. As the US Reuters Institute statistics show, Facebook and YouTube are the leaders in usage as the news resources amongst other social networks. More news groups and channels are created and more messages are being sent on those platforms. But it does not mean that news channels are left with no readers, as they are also creating pages in social networks and sometimes gain even more views as they would have on their separate news sites.
The first influence that social networks brought is an increase in the importance of the authenticity of the information. In Facebook, any human can fake the news in their posts and no one restricts them to do so. They spread rumours and may deceive thousands of people in no time. And because of that traditional news channels receive more trust as they hire well-educated people and therefore give more official information than the one users may post.
The second large influence is the fast changes that prevail in social networks which made a good competition for news channels such as CNN, DW or BBC that joined the social networks. They had to make their content more attractive, more trustworthy and overall give up the conservative television style. For example, a traditional format of news broadcasting would not suit a trivial YouTube user. But using the short video format with highly concentrated information, and an attractive or provocative topic would change the result completely. For example, it can be easily noticed on the BBC YouTube channel page when switching the filter to the “most popular” and back to the “newest first”. There are tens of millions of views on short, catching content, but mediocre interviews and reports are left without even one million of views. With all the fast changes in the world and fast accessibility to information resources, people get tired of long articles and reports, so a new format of news would suit people better.
And finally, the third change that social networks made is a good connection with the reader and publisher. News posts on Facebook can receive comments, be reposted thus being actively discussed and judged. That means people may express their opinion in a fast and easy way, share their experience and tell others if this post is real or fake. That also makes a higher competition for the news publishers and forces them to think about the audience.
In a conclusion, I would like to bring up the second point again. I think that the biggest change social networks made to the news are people’s expectation of different content from the news resources. It must be short, fast, tempting and stand out from others so that more people watch it. Unfortunately, some news channels prefer unhealthy competition to achieve popularity but we can hope that their indecent methods will start playing an opposite role after some time.
Used sources:
Alina Blackwood. (March 23, 2021). “Social Media Impact On News”. IO Technologies Blog. (Access date: 13.02.2022). https://blog.iotechnologies.com/social-media-impact-on-news/
Nicole Martin. (November 30, 2018). “How Social Media Has Changed How We Consume News”. Forbes. (Access date: 13.02.2022). https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolemartin1/2018/11/30/how-social-media-has-changed-how-we-consume-news/?sh=4ae01d4d3c3c
Ruth A. Harper. (2010). “The Social Media Revolution: Exploring the Impact on Journalism and News Media Organizations”. Inquiries Journal. (Access date: 12.02.2022). http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/202/the-social-media-revolution-exploring-the-impact-on-journalism-and-news-media-organizations
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