Thursday 9 February 2012

Social media has allowed everyday citizens to become authors, editors, and publishers of news and information. Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it?


In my opinion I feel as though social media has increased the quality of news. This is because news is getting easier to access everyday. With social media, it allows anyone with a computer, smartphone, iPod’s and etcetera to access breaking news anytime of the day from all over the world. As well as being able to share the latest updates on a story to your friends and family, keeping everyone knowledgeable of what is going on around the world. With social media and the news coming together, people are given the opportunity to either read the article or watch the broadcast and being able to search up the specific news you want to read or watch.

An importance of the increased quality of the news would be those devastating disasters that happen all around the world. For instance earthquakes, hurricanes and other nature disasters that have affected entire towns, without social media, many people would not know about these instances. Many companies joined up with the social media tool, twitter to notify everyone and would tell the world that for every tweet sent out about the disaster, they would send so much money towards fixing up what happened. Not only did social media help raise awareness to the events, but also allowed people to share and post pictures and videos of the tragedies faster than the “traditional” way the media would cover a story.

The traditional media such as newspapers, and the 6 o’clock news takes time to gather all of the information necessary and prepares a well laid out report. Where as social media and the news can be spread as soon as something is heard. In the end, traditional media has seen developments to their broadcasting methods. Making the news easier to find out in a faster, more efficient way to the world. Although everyone is starting to prefer this way better, it’s not bad to sit down on a morning enjoying a nice cup of coffee and enjoy relaxing while reading a newspaper. The world is evolving and so is social media.