With the onset of social media, news organisations no longer have a monopoly on the type of news the public receives or the way news is packaged to a particular audience.Simply making information available is not enough for today's public. Today’s audiences expect to be able to choose what they read, and most believe they should be able to contribute content and opinions, too (Harper 2010.)
Personally I do not use Twitter so I am in no real position to comment on the value of its contribution to the journalism industry. No doubt it seems useful, especially in disseminating news on a large scale at an incredibly fast rate. It may also be said that Twitter is enhancing the processes of democracy by providing the typical "consumer" to perpetuate their version of the truth/opinion etc without being impeded by some political or institutional barrier. This was seen in Iran this year where protesting Iranians were able to inform international audiences of the unfair election process, which was not being reported in the mainstream media. Twitter was also credited with breaking the news of the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010.
However are their negative ramifications of social network tools and resulting independent journalism? Obviously social media as a news tool comes with no guarantee of objectivity. It seems a widely accepted view that the work of traditional journalists is affected by the institutional bias of a newsroom they are employed by. However the fact that bloggers or journalists employing social media do not have these corporate prejudices does not mean objectivity will shine through. If anything the opposite conclusion that is to be drawn. Here the function of mainstream media newsrooms is to provide checks and balances to ensure truthful and democratic reporting. This is unlike the online world where there are no such checks and balances, meaning it is incredibly easy for anyone to post any "information."For example, who will determine or assess (other than the university tutors of course) the truth of what I am writing right now? A blog, like this one provides a perfect example of an online tool that does not rely on a desperate need for truth or objectivity.
In fact a myriad of situations have occur ed which can only be described as social media hoaxes. More often than not, a large number of people have fallen victim to the false information. For example, this year it was falsely reported online that actor Johnny Depp had died in a car crash, which led to widespread dissemination of this information through Twitter. In August, veteran Washington Post sports journalist found himself in hot water after falsely tweeting on his Twitter account that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who has been accused of sexually assaulting a Georgia college student, would receive a five-game suspension (Commagreens 2010.) According to Wise, he did this to prove a point about the readiness of the media to run stories without verifying information. Ironically, Wise now finds himself suspended from The Washington Post. However what this story does tell us is the incredible ease with which people can perpetuate information into the media sphere without any credibility or truth whatsoever. Herein lies the biggest question surrounding the usefulness of social media as a journalistic tool.
References-
Commagreens, D. 2010, 'Twitter Hoax Lands Columnist Suspension,' Weekly World News, 31 August, viewed 9 September 2010, <http://weeklyworldnews.com/sports/21713/twitter-hoax-lands-columnist-suspension/>.
Harper, R. 2010, "The Social Media Revolution: Exploring the Impact on Journalism and News Media Organizations," Student Pulse Online Academic Journal, 11 March, viewed 6 September 2010, http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/202/the-social-media-revolution-exploring-the-impact-on-journalism-and-news-media-organizations.
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