iCount Youth Account
News a la Social Network
When Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake in January, individuals with cell phones and satellite Internet were able to use their social network accounts to tell the world how bad it was and get aid quickly. That is a true contribution to global media via social networking!
In 2009, the online Hollywood gossip blog TMZ reported the death of Michael Jackson long before traditional media could confirm it. Is that because mainstream news is more careful about broadcasting false items or do social networks have an edge because they are tuned in to everyday people like you?
The same TMZ has been caught several times with blatantly false reports too, such as the death of Harrison Ford and so on. Do they jump on a good story without caring about repercussions? For something like TMZ, what are the repercussions? Nobody will believe it next time? Their advertisers may not want to be involved anymore?
Breaking news via these social network sites and blogs could be compared to the sensational tabloid journalism you see on magazine covers in supermarket checkout lines…it just happens to be a bit quicker to reach its audience when it goes out by Internet and cell phone feed.
But when was the last time you read a newspaper? Or tuned in the radio or TV news deliberately to find out what was happening? It may be that “traditional” news reports are losing ground to social network news releases, especially to young people. So far, social networks seem to report a hybrid of sensational celebrity gossip and traditional mainstream stories. It doesn’t look like Twitter will replace the traditional beat reporter…YET.
Best practices of mainstream media may come to social networks, slowly replacing the sensationalism that marks most stories so far. Only time will tell.
