Can traditional journalism survive in a media environment in which consumption happens mostly on social media?

Can traditional journalism survive in a media environment in which consumption happens mostly on social media?

In former times, original journalism organizations controlled all the news products and services, whereas now social media companies like Facebook have become very influential and even supplant the aims of news outlets with their own interests. Print media still has a good subscriber base, but by contrast, the circulation of these mediums decreases continuously. As an example, according to the Pew Research Center survey in January 2016, only 5 percent of U.S. adults considered print media as their “most helpful“ source concerning getting information about political issues. 

Although the traditional journalism has shown that it can compete with social media by making experiments with virtual reality journalism, for instance, one has to distinguish the two competitors generally because they differentiate in their aims and have a different audience. 
Quality newspapers are very serious. By contrast, news provided on social media sites often just consider one side of a case and even use sensationalism shocks to get more clicks. However, 62 percent of the U.S. adults get their news from social media and the circulation of newspapers falls a few percent each year. In addition, I personally do not read newspapers either and get my information from Facebook and other websites.

Another important aspect to consider is that Facebook has a feature called Instant Articles which allows its users to get information from other sites like Buzzfeed without leaving Facebook. That is to say, Facebook has an advantage as opposed to print media. 

In conclusion, I am of the opinion that original print media can still survive in an environment which is mostly influenced by social media but unfortunately it is losing its value over time

Nancy Paap (Posted by Aaron)