How do the citizen journalist using the social media affect the activities of traditional media production and how are and have the media houses strategised to meet the changing trend in mass media work. (ASSIGNMENT)

  In the ever-expanding and fast-paced of new digital world, new media is rapidly gaining complete ascending over traditional media. The interactive platform it provides for widespread discussion and news postings which can occur instantly seems to attract a large mass of users by the minute.

Jay Rosen defines citizen journalism as;” when people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possessions to inform one another”. A very simple definition by Tony Rogers says; “citizen journalism is when private individuals do essentially what professional reporters do, report information”. The concept of citizen journalism is based on public citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information. The emergence of modern technology in this face-paced system of things requires citizen journalists to employ new and powerful platforms for communication to foray into the competitive world of information. An effective method that has been widely embraced by citizen journalists to fulfill these demands is the use of social demands.

One may ask, what is social media? Well, social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share and or, exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and network. It could also be defined by the personal computing glossary as the collective of online communication channels dedicated to community based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.  Examples of these social media are; facebook, twitter, blogs, google+ and the likes. New media technologies, including the increase prevalence of digital phones have made citizen journalism more accessible to people all over the world. Due to the high availability of new media, citizen journalists can report breaking news more quickly than traditional media reporters.

Traditional media refers to the old way of spreading information.  It may also refer to the media used before the advent of technological advances like the internet. Mostly, media that are often referred to as the traditional media are; the press, radio and the television. New media on the other hand is what many of us enjoy using this day. As soon as you log in to the internet, the acquiring and disseminating of information begins. It is digital and therefore it allow unlimited number of people to connect at the same time. This is why new media is such a powerful communication tool in our age. New media also expands our need as a business owner to the world and allows other people to be fellow marketers though social networking tools

New media as an alternative media to the basic media presents a massive change to the professionalised and institutionalised practise of the mainstream media.  Unfortunately for traditional media, strategies used by them have been adopted, polished to a maximum advancement and being used by the new media. This makes the traditional media very colloquial when using it.

 Also the social media used  by citizen journalist provides unlimited freedom of expression of one’s views and more opportunity to explore than the traditional media. With this new diversity of the spread of information, traditional media houses are highly threatened by the rise of new media because it can lead to the close down of these traditional media houses.

The evolution of social media has therefore kept every media house on the edge of their toes. It has made the market very competitive where by media houses struggle amongst one another for the maximum attention of audiences. Seeing this, most media houses adopted some strategies that will still keep them in business and not wear off like an old sticker on a wall. Some of these strategies are; the use of new technologies such as a touch pad flat screen television which can also be connected to the internet, an electronic note book or tablets and a laptop in the dispersion of news. The use of these technological artefacts by the media houses make audiences believe or accept everything that is being given to them in the news. This is so due to audiences now trusting the new media than the traditional media. A vivid example can be the broadcasting of the evening news on both TV3 and GTV. Although they are doing similar things, the presentation of information differentiates them. TV3 news broadcasters come full equipped because they are endowed with new technologies that make broadcasting easier in this new age. Whereas GTV, ‘the nation’s pulse’ has just upgraded itself to a flat screen television and sometimes a laptop.

  Also media houses realised that if they do not use the social media to their advantage, they may not have information at their finger tips. Now, most media houses have created websites, twitter accounts, facebook accounts and the likes to get and disperse information faster just like the a citizen journalist.  They now use the social media to inform audiences on new and up-coming activities they have. For example, Visat1, a private owned television station in Ghana, really use the social media to their advantage. It used the platform provided by facebook to sell its programmes to audiences. Although it can be described as an infant in the midst of media houses, it has the most effective facebook page and also one of the most effective websites comparing to other media houses.

   Another example is the Cable News Network popularly known as CNN. This media house is known for the provision of news24/7/365-66 throughout the world. It is able to survive this new age because it employs the social media. Whilst news is been broadcasted live on television, the same news is being twitted, shared on facebook, their personal websites and other known websites. This is to help target people who are always glued to the internet. Currently on twitter, CNN has 13.7M followers around the globe due to its frequent update of news. Not leaving out media houses which practice printing, graphics and magazines like the New Yorker, Times magazine, and the Ghanaian Daily Graphic also adopt some social media such as; emails, websites, twitter and facebook accounts and enhance their image through them.

 Now, media houses have improved on the provision of credible news because they have realised that audience are not as passive or dormant as they used to be. Therefore provision of credible information is one of their biggest priority. This is in order to keep their audiences, gain more audience and win their trust in them.

References:

Retrieved from www.twitter.com by Mercy.S. Tsar- 22/10/13
Retrieved from www.facebook,com by Mercy.S. Tsar- 22/10/13