Is Twitter Changing the Face of News Coverage?
No-one can deny the un-paralleled rise of social networking over the past five or so years, in fact it has been virtually impossible to get away from the headlines that show Facebook’s growing user-base (which seems to be virtually everyone on the planet, with the notable exception of China), the speed at which Twitter took over the internet as an avenue for getting breaking news and spying on one’s favorite celebrities, and finally LinkedIn, to a lesser extent, is still holding its own as a more professional version of social networking.
Recently, the media has attempted to portray social media – particularly Twitter – as a potential replacement for cable news. There is some argument for this; a number of high profile news stories have broken on Twitter first and sometimes developments are best followed in real-time on the giant social networking site. The news may not come to you in a way that is particularly coherent – it will be a splattering of different reports, some unconfirmed, some incorrect, but in the end it is quite possible and likely that the reports you receive will generally be correct and will be pointing in the right direction.
There is also less spin on Twitter than you receive on a television broadcast. This of course needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, but the fact that you are receiving reports from hundreds or thousands of sources should mean that you will receive a less biased report of news.
This all comes down to who you decide to follow on Twitter though. You may find that you are only following people that you, in general, agree with. This can mean that hearing the other side of the story will not be very apparent on Twitter.
Is this different from traditional media? Perhaps not – we also choose to read newspapers that report in the style we find comfortable, and are unlikely to read significant amounts of news from a paper or broadcast that we find completely contradictory to our own views. But the use of Twitter, RSS and social media has allowed us to focus our news coverage much more specifically, more personally.
How Twitter will ultimately change the way we view news and current affairs is yet to be seen. In the scheme of things it could still be a flash in the pan, or it could revolutionize the way we interact with information in the modern world.
Claire Jarrett runs Marketing By Web, who offer Pay Per Click Services and are a PPC Agency
Twitter and Facebook are very famous because we have a social nature. I think the web is evolutioning to be more personal and this is great!
Claire,
Social networking has definitely taken over by far. However, that being said I hope it doesn’t replace cable news. I enjoy watching the news, yes I do get info. from facebook, twitter, etc. but I have a trust for news stations. It’s like reading an actual newspaper. I know by the time I get the newspaper, it is considered old news, but I enjoy reading an actual newspaper rather than an online newspaper.
I have spent quite some time to eventually stumble on your blog post about this topic. Great article for which you merit to have a credit on my side.
Thanks for your comments, and apologies for the delay. Glad you enjoyed the blog! I think that actually news are being positively affected by Social Media. I hope that the news producers can keep up with the changes and ensure they find new ways of getting revenue!