Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it.

       I do believe that social media has increased the quantity of news, but at the same time decreased the quality of new that you are receiving.
          Today era is very fast. Nobody has a spare time. So, everybody use the technology. Social media is a part of technology for mass communication. The activity in media continued to expand. Advancements in technology further allowed citizen monitoring, and the popularity of Twitter and other social media helped in broadcasting.  And this all comes as many communities face cutbacks and reduced coverage from traditional media. The traditional news hierarchy has been upended. With actual news, and items that look suspiciously like news, coming at us from a variety of outlets, how do we know what to trust? How do we distinguish credible information from raw information, misinformation and propaganda? And if all information is created equal, why will anyone seek out quality journalism — especially if we think it’s all driven by bias anyway?
I do really like the idea of people sharing their ideas, and inputting there journalistic facts and information, towards their social media of choice.  I just do not like the idea, that I am getting false information. I actually do enjoy getting my news from the internet.  It is much easier and convenient to do then possibly, reading the newspaper.  This has also decreased sales for newspaper companies. But I do not enjoy having to search more than one source, just to make sure that all the information I get is accurate.  So overall, I am torn between the easy accessibility of the internet, and knowing that it is not all true.  And the newspaper, which I know is more accurate than the internet.


Thursday, 12 January 2012

Social Media is the biggest shift since the Industrial revolution.

Social media is steadily changing and growing every year, it consistently invites people to interact with one another without actually having a face to face conversation. Most common social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are used on a daily day basis to communicate with friends and family differently and even interact with celebrities around the world. I personally use facebook as another way to interact with my friends and family. With facebook, it allows me to see and comment on my friends pictures, videos, notes and their personal statuses etc.  Social media has rapidly become a popular way to interact with others that even business companies use it as a tool to get their brands products or services known to the public. They have ads and pictures being put onto the facebook site that people are constantly on and can now reach out to billions of people in the world advertising their brands products or services which could lead to potential clients. Social media has also been used as a way to raise awareness of local events or tragedies going on in the world. When tragedy’s such as the tsunami that hit Japan earlier this year, most people were being aware of this terrible event through twitter, facebook or youtube. Students who don’t watch the news see tons of facebook/twitter updates ,pictures and videos posted  about it and look it up on youtube to see what is going on. My perception is that social media has become the biggest shift today and isn’t a fad. It will continue to grow and develop because even today, facebook is always being upgraded to make it better then it was before. Eventually something new and better will come up for future generations to enjoy just like people today enjoy the many ways of interacting with others across the globe.