GROUP ONE
- DAVID K. YEVUGAH
- AGBEDOR AGBESI GODWIN
- RICHARD GYASI
- COMMEY BENJAMIN ADAMAFIO
- TIMOTHY TAYABNYI NGNENBE
QUESTION
How do the activities of citizen journalism affect the
business of traditional journalism and what strategies are they putting in place
to meet up with new media?
The question requires us to look at the concepts of social
media and citizen journalism and the impact it has had, it’s having and would
have on news produced by the traditional media organizations. We are further
required by the question to outline strategies these traditional media have
adopted, are adopting and should resort to in order not to cede its power as a fourth
estate in government.
INTRODUCTION
Traditional media refers to the old types of media which
have existed since before the advent of the new medium of the internet. This
kind of media includes cable TV, radio, movie and music studios, newspapers,
magazines and books.
Social media by definition is a form of electronic medium
that is meant to facilitate interaction based on people’s interest and unique
characteristics. It is a new paradigm that creates a platform for people to
discover, read and share news, information’s and messages in an interactive
manner. Some forms of social media are Facebook, twitter, blog, whats-app, LinkedIn
and many others.
Citizen journalism on the other hand, can be seen as members
of the public who play an active role in the collecting, reporting, analyzing
and disseminating of news and information. Based on the role they play, they
are sometimes called stand alone journalism, street journalism, distributed
journalism and networked journalism.
EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND CITIZEN JOURNALISM ON TRADITIONAL MEDIA
Before the advent of social media, news production and
dissemination was done in top-down fashion with traditional media playing the
gate keeping role. The audience were gullible and less interactive [passive].
The traditional media organizations operate in well constituted bodies and have
their editorial policies and management systems. The advent of this trend of
news production gave rise to citizen journalism; ordinary people who hitherto
were passive audience have virtually warmed themselves into the business of
generating news. The result is that the gate keeping role of traditional media
is under siege. Previously, users used to be readers, viewers and listeners but
now the concept of users has gone beyond to encompass news producers. This has become
possible due to technological advancement. The availability of mobile devices
that can record pictures, videos and have constant internet connection, combined with growing popularity
of social networking sites has actually made it possible for people to produce
and share news. This is therefore posing
some kind of threat to the traditional media.
One major effect that the social media have on the
traditional media is low patronage of traditional media contents. As a result
of the advent of social media, the patronage of traditional media contents.
This is because news from these traditional news media turn to be old by the
time they are broadcasted or published due to the long process they go through
in processing these news as compared to the social media which enables a news
to broadcasted or published instantly, thereby making people to rely on the
social media for news.
Another effect of the social media on the traditional media
is advertising opportunities for the legacy media. Traditional media mostly
strive on advertising to generate income to keep them in business. However,
since people have resorted to social media as their main news source, most
advertising companies 0r agencies have resorted to advertising in these social
media, hence less adverts end up in these traditional media, thereby making it
difficult to raise enough income to remain in business.
Democratization of information or news has become possible
thanks to social media. In the traditional news media, the production and
dissemination of information and news was in the form of top-down. However,
social media have made it possible for those who used to be consumers
[audiences] of these news from the traditional media are now producers of
various news, hence, the down-top approach.
Furthermore, the social media has brought about media
convergence which is non-existent in the traditional media. Due to this, many
audiences are able to access different kinds of news at the same time at a particular
site. Audiences of the traditional media however have to wait for the their
segment of the news to be broadcasted before they are able to get the
information they are looking for.
Other effects of the social media on the traditional media
include; the digital divide of the social media, quick feedback, reduction of
actual job for professional journalists and simultaneity of information
sharing.
In the midst of this giant strides social media is making in
the new paradigm, the traditional news media have adopted several strategies to
contain the threats these social media and citizen journalists pose. Among
these strategies include;
Most of the traditional news media have incorporated social
media into their news production and dissemination. That is, they have gone
online. Examples of such traditional news media are ; citifmonline.com. peacefmonline.com
and myjoyonline.com.
Furthermore, most of these traditional news media have also
created social media pages such as Facebook, twitter that enable them to
interact with their listeners and viewers. Examples of such media in Ghana are Citi FM, Tv3, radio XYZ, etc.
Moreover, due to the digitized nature of the social media,
most traditional news media have digitized in order to counter the threats
this social media pose to them. Example of such news media is TV3.
FUTURE STRATEGIES TRADITIONAL
MEDIA NEED TO ADOPT
Despite the improvement made or strategies adopted by the
traditional media to remain relevant in the system in spite of the
threats from the social media, more needs to be done by these traditional news
media to still remain useful.
One strategy that the traditional ought to adopt is to target
its core audience and produce news that will satisfy them. There is the need to re-brand and repackage their products to improve on quality and attractiveness.
Traditional media will have to digitize in all aspect of
news production and dissemination if it is to remain relevant in these
technological advancing society.
Since citizen journalists report news just as they see them,
traditional news media should do more than just also reporting the news. In
other words, the traditional media need to give in-depth reports on issues.
CONCLUSION
The concepts of social media and citizen have come to stay.
Traditional media should therefore strategically position themselves so as to
be able to survive now and in the future.
REFERENCE
1. Lev
Manovich “The Language of New Media”
2.
Bailey Socha and Barbara Eber-Schmid “WHAT IS NEW MEDIA? Defining
New Media Isn’t Easy”
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