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?
Social
media has allowed people from all walks of life to participate in newsgathering
and the dissemination of news. No longer is it the exclusive domain of the
professional journalist to inform the public.
While
social media has certainly made it easier
for people to report on news and events, I believe it has not increased the quality of news content and information
for the following reasons:
- typically, citizen journalists are not accountable to any governing body or public editor
- citizen journalists are not held accountable by strict journalism industry ethics. These industry ethics guide professionals to deliver content in a truthful, respectful manner so that the public can maintain their trust in the validity and accuracy of the news
- citizen journalism lacks the critical editorial process for fact-checking, sourcing and referencing
- professional journalism standards are often not met, such as grammar and writing styles
- errors in judgement, factual errors, omissions, manipulation of quotes and facts – all these can result in misleading information
- a tendency for citizen journalists to pontificate and be subjective instead of objective
- a tendency for citizens to incorporate their natural biases into the reporting
Certainly having many voices is a progressive and
positive shift in media: more voices around the world results in increased
awareness. However, I don’t believe more voices equals better quality
journalism, it simply equals more opinions. The frequency of something doesn’t
necessarily increase its quality.
My fear is that there is a tendency among young
people to rely on inexperienced and non-professional bloggers and lay-people
(citizen journalists) for their daily news information. This is creating a
cycle of mis-informed individuals guided by opinion, pontification and
subjective reporting, even sometimes, outright manipulated information.
Hi Yvonne,
ReplyDeleteAlways great to read your blogs! They're well written and always interesting.
I absolutely agree with you; "the frequency of something doesn't necessarily increase its quality". This can lead to a decrease in quality.
With all of this being said, as both "informed" and "everyday" citizens, what can we do to ensure that this "cycle" can be broken (if even just a bit)?
Well written blog and interesting for me to read, as I am on the other side of the debate. You do make very good points but what about the people that are witnesses and are there live. They can provide us with real time videos or answer any questions the readers have. The witness themselves would know more to the story than a reporter asking questions. Just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteKelsey: I am not suggesting citizen journalism does't have a place. It certainly does. I agree that coverage of spot news events can be enhanced by on-site witnesses. The shooting at the theatre where the new Batman movie was being premiered is a perfect recent example. We saw video being streamed within a few short minutes of the shooting. That is certainly amazing. And these first-hand witness accounts were used by mainstream media liberally. (http://www.thestar.com/videozone/1229316--witness-we-thought-it-was-part-of-movie). As witnesses, citizens are invaluable. As reporters of the event though, is when the process can become tainted with bias, innuendo, leading of other witnesses and, in the worst cases, outright manipulation.
DeleteCarolyn: Thank you for your kind comments about my blog! To answer your question, a couple of things come to mind: a) educate and encourage young people to be critical thinkers so they will not just take information at face value from wherever they find it; educate them on proper research tools and resources (ex: Wikipedia and many blogs are not reliable resources of factual information); educate them on what constitutes reliable, reputable and factual sources of newsworthy information; show them WHY many of their favourite sources of information (i.e.: social media and bloggers) are not reliable sources of trustworthy information; and, b) educate the general public about journalistic integrity and ethics so they understand what goes into proper and reliable reporting of information, thereby hopefully reducing misinformation and the manipulation of information. These are tall orders, I know.
ReplyDeleteWhat a well written blog! Thank you - I enjoyed reading your perspective. I agree completely with "My fear is that there is a tendency among young people to rely on inexperienced and non-professional bloggers and lay-people (citizen journalists) for their daily news information" - I have a teenage daughter that receives 90% of her information from the internet - of which - readdress 75% of it due to it being incorrect, missing information or completely misleading. We need to ensure that our young people understand that it a tool - that they need to ensure reliability in what they read and bring forward.
ReplyDeleteEverything was well put together well written, great understanding of the asubject my most favored part was your last paragraph "Certainly having many voices is a progressive and positive shift in media: more voices around the world results in increased awareness. However, I don’t believe more voices equals better quality journalism, it simply equals more opinions. The frequency of something doesn’t necessarily increase its quality."
ReplyDeleteVery nice blog, I really did enjoy reading it.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you completely. It is rather hard to find social media based blogs that are based on facts, or rather complete facts that have not be paraphrased to create a basis. I struggle my self attempting to find my news from blogs that are complete; I typically find my self reading multiple blogs to try and put together the complete story from many perspectives.
Well written, you made some excellent points and really had me interested. Good job.
ReplyDeleteVery true Yvonne. Accountability is key. Also I agree with the fact that anyone can make a news site or blog that we are not properly informed and as a society for the most part we are starting to believe EVERYTHING we read and trusting sources that have no validity.
ReplyDeletewow thats a really good answer. i escepially agree with what u said abount frequency not relating to quality. this is very true. yet surprising how many people would think that if 500 thousand people say yes then it must be true.
ReplyDeleteThis was great to read a different opinion, although I think I'm kind of on the fence about it all. You wrote fantastically, with so many great points. I look forward to reading your blog for future assignments, hopefully I'll gain some more knowledge from you!
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to read your post. You have a completely different opinion than mine. I don’t disagree with any of the points you have made. Your blog posting made me view citizen journalism is a different way than I had originally viewed it. I think it has good aspects as well as bad. No one should rely solely on the information they read from inexperienced and non-professional bloggers and citizen journalists.
ReplyDelete