The recent age has witnessed the world in a seismic shift towards the digital age with an unprecedented increase in the individual handling and consumption of information available over the internet, where social media emerges as ubiquities, albeit complex news outlets. With the initiation of every new generation, the want for more information is at its highest with questions seasoned with moral or radial reasonings, some needing personal interference and some remaining worthwhile questions waiting to be answered as people gasp in front of the television engulfed with the daily reports which still, aren't enough. Therefore, it became impertinent for many to try and answer the public, one by one, throwing in bits of something innovative, or something already existing with a renovative ideology.
The flames of social media's journalistic journey were first ignited as a plea, bold yet direct, addressing the concerns of the contemporary public, but later gained a much louder voice through sheer adoration and the support of being visible to the public. Unbeknownst of its latent vices, what was seen as a light of hope was misguided with prejudice and one-sided narratives with the obscure ambition to gain popularity through public views.
This new frontier, however, was not without its poisonous underbrush. The same instantaneity and availability that transformed social media into something so appealing as a replacement for traditional sources of news also paved the fertile ground upon which unsubstantiated rumour and inflammatory rhetoric grew. The high editorial standards and fact-checking protocols once employed as sentinels of journalistic integrity too often were circumvented in the quest for viral popularity. Consequently, the internet became fertile ground on which echo chambers grew where individuals were mostly exposed to reinforcing information of preconceived ideas, further polarizing society and rendering them devoid of in-depth understanding.
Also, algorithmic architecture at the core of social networking sites, to maximize user engagement, necessarily had a preference for sensationalism and indignation over accuracy and balanced reporting. The desire for "likes," shares, and comments subsidized the creation and distribution of material that provoked a strong emotional response, whether accurate or not. This cycle served to obscure the difference between objective reporting and subjective opinion, further complicating matters for individuals who are trying to tell reliable news from intentional disinformation or biased interpretation. The initial promise of an information space democratized, thus, was met with the bitter reality of a fractured and often unreliable digital space that needed more thoughtful and discerning use by its users. The challenge, then, is to harness the inevitable power of social media for the spread of information in real time while also lessening its susceptibility to manipulation and the erosion of journalistic quality.
In the end, the dawn of our digital era has inextricably linked social media with news dissemination, hence creating an interesting paradox. These sites, with their facilitation of quick transfer of information, citizen journalism, and passionate interaction with recent developments, also carry inherent aspects that make them susceptible to the dissemination of disinformation, the creation of isolated online communities, and the desire for exciting but not necessarily factual accounts. This intricate virtual reality world needs to be negotiated by us as keenly thinking digital readers, masters at sorting information, and sensitive to the invisible algorithms that dictate what we read. Ultimately, whether social media can be a source of trusted news depends less on its technical ability, but on all of us – humans and the organizations that run the sites – working together to create a smarter, wiser virtual reality world.
The flames of social media's journalistic journey were first ignited as a plea, bold yet direct, addressing the concerns of the contemporary public, but later gained a much louder voice through sheer adoration and the support of being visible to the public. Unbeknownst of its latent vices, what was seen as a light of hope was misguided with prejudice and one-sided narratives with the obscure ambition to gain popularity through public views.
This new frontier, however, was not without its poisonous underbrush. The same instantaneity and availability that transformed social media into something so appealing as a replacement for traditional sources of news also paved the fertile ground upon which unsubstantiated rumour and inflammatory rhetoric grew. The high editorial standards and fact-checking protocols once employed as sentinels of journalistic integrity too often were circumvented in the quest for viral popularity. Consequently, the internet became fertile ground on which echo chambers grew where individuals were mostly exposed to reinforcing information of preconceived ideas, further polarizing society and rendering them devoid of in-depth understanding.
Also, algorithmic architecture at the core of social networking sites, to maximize user engagement, necessarily had a preference for sensationalism and indignation over accuracy and balanced reporting. The desire for "likes," shares, and comments subsidized the creation and distribution of material that provoked a strong emotional response, whether accurate or not. This cycle served to obscure the difference between objective reporting and subjective opinion, further complicating matters for individuals who are trying to tell reliable news from intentional disinformation or biased interpretation. The initial promise of an information space democratized, thus, was met with the bitter reality of a fractured and often unreliable digital space that needed more thoughtful and discerning use by its users. The challenge, then, is to harness the inevitable power of social media for the spread of information in real time while also lessening its susceptibility to manipulation and the erosion of journalistic quality.
In the end, the dawn of our digital era has inextricably linked social media with news dissemination, hence creating an interesting paradox. These sites, with their facilitation of quick transfer of information, citizen journalism, and passionate interaction with recent developments, also carry inherent aspects that make them susceptible to the dissemination of disinformation, the creation of isolated online communities, and the desire for exciting but not necessarily factual accounts. This intricate virtual reality world needs to be negotiated by us as keenly thinking digital readers, masters at sorting information, and sensitive to the invisible algorithms that dictate what we read. Ultimately, whether social media can be a source of trusted news depends less on its technical ability, but on all of us – humans and the organizations that run the sites – working together to create a smarter, wiser virtual reality world.