It has
become increasingly more difficult for traditional media to survive in a world
of social media. The prevalence of sites like Buzzfeed, that offer bite
size pieces of information packed in a sensational title perfectly illustrate
the growing difficulties traditional journalism face.
Much of the news that can be found on social
media differs greatly from that of
traditional journalism. Unlike
traditional investigative journalism, social media delivers bits of information
that can be easily read on a cell phone during the subway ride to work. These
compressed articles are contrary to
a complete article often lacking on important background information.
Information is necessary when building an opinion, whereas the lack of information can lead to opinions based on false
premises.
While traditional journalism trumps social media on the use of fact
based information, social media wins in reaching a broader audience, or at
least one would think so. While
writing this blog, I decided to check the Facebook pages of the New York Times
and Buzzfeed News. Opposed to what I
originally thought the New York Times has roughly 12.5 million followers on
Facebook and Buzzfeed news only about 2 million.
A possibility for traditional
journalism to survive the social media revolution is to use the tools of the
social media to sustain the traditional side of journalism. This does not mean
they should change the way they work, but how they present themselves. It
remains of the utmost importance for readers to be able to differentiate between factual correct stories and sensational
stories looking to clickbait users
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