The impact pf social media to the quality of journalism

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A CHALLENGE FOR QUALITY JOURNALISM

      Social media refers to the use of web based mobile technologies to turn communication in to an interactive dialogue. Social media is best understood as a group of new kind of online media, which share most or all of the following characteristics. Social media encourages contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested. It blurs the line between media and audience. Most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They encourage voting, comments and the sharing of information. There are rarely any barriers to

access and making use of content – password-protected content is frowned on. Whereas traditional media is about “broadcast” (content transmitted or distributed to an audience) social media is better seen as a two-way conversation. Social media allows communities to form quickly and communicate effectively. Communities share common interests, such as a love of photography, a political issue or a favorite TV show. Most kinds of social media thrive on their connectedness, making use of links to other sites, resources and people. Social networks, in addition, are sites that allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to share content and communication. The biggest social networks are MySpace, Facebook and BEBO etc. Blogs also are online journals.

   Members of the society of professional journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Journalists use several methods to justify their decisions. In most ethical dilemmas, editors and reporters discuss the issue and consequence of publication before making decision. Also they consider how newsworthy the story is and whether the public really needs this information. In comparison, we may refer social media as a challenge, in fact, a serious challenge to quality journalism. Because social media allows those who are not trained   journalists to act as media practitioners by disseminating information without ethical reasoning.

    The issue of plagiarism in social media has become order of the day, as though it’s ethical. Because technology has made it easier to plagiarize, and also because accessibility to thousands of news sources  are so easy,  stealing words from someone else without attribution is not a new phenomenon as far as social media is concerned. Thus social media is a challenge to ethics of journalism. Another interrelated issue is that in social medium, there is immediacy, in other words, less of or nor editing, no conversion as well as no typesetting. Hence, users may write the way they wish and may likely attempt to tarnish the image of any personality and disrupt important social structure in a society. While journalists work in two tasks, gathering the information and putting it into more acceptable form, social media allows for rampant use of unprofessional language in communication. This is to say that social media employs the personal idiosyncrasies of the writer in presenting information. Therefore, in quality journalism, media practitioners must be objective in their report which has become a necessity in attaining this goal. Therefore, journalists must present information the way it is, not the way they expect it to be. Objectivity in journalism cannot be over emphasized, since without it, there would be no journalism. Furthermore, it is easy to think of social media as a win-win situation for businesses and consumers, but that fact is simply not true. Businesses and consumers both suffer as a result of social media in some ways, i.e., differences of opinion, errors and mistakes, misuse of information and distraction of viewers etc.

      Nevertheless, there are a lot of errors in social media communication. This is obviously owed to the imperfect nature of human beings. They make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes cause big problems, but those erroneous messages get broadcasted through the social and viral media networks faster than grandmothers’ gossip chain. The biggest challenge of social media to quality journalism is that people are migrating from traditional media in favor of the new media. Despite the fact that messages transmitted through traditional media are certified and testified in reality, while widespread information from unknown sources (rumors) which might not be true in reality, yet, are broadcasted in social media networks. However this is seen by media practitioners (professional journalists) as a great challenge because masses nowadays access social media for their informational needs, and believing it to be a reliable source.  But they are getting wrong information and use them as if it’s real. Because media practitioners are always  busy working in order to sift  information through various gate keeping processes, so as to satisfy their (audience, readers, viewers, listeners etc)  with accurate, simple and clear information, they perceive social media as a challenge to their profession and to the ethics of journalism.

    In conclusion, quality journalism is all about disseminating reality in an accurate, simple and clear as well as in a reliable manner. The emergence of social media that people are relying on, has greatly undermined these objectives. There is simply no journalistic or ethical consideration in social media information. In a nutshell, people regard social media in a way it is not supposed to be. Social network users are not journalists but provide information to heterogeneous and anonymous users that have different ideologies, interests, opinions, religion, race, perceptions to mention but a few. Often during conflicts or wars,  media plays a vital role in resolving conflict, in contrast however, social networks, as we have seen recently, may lead to outbreak of war due to  of rumors spreading through social media which tends to lead to uprisings misunderstandings among conflicting parties. A recent example is how facebook aids in fueling violence in the ongoing Arab uprising. This new phenomenon might be perceived as social change, it is one actually. But the question we need to ask ourselves is, is this the kind of change we need? Time will surely tell.