Influence Of Social Media On The Way We Consume News

Gone are the days when we used to wait for the news coming to us through the morning newspaper. Nowadays, we can have all the information and news we want at the touch of a button and people now get a major source of their news through the internet, and social media is one of the most prominent sources of news. Social media has taken the place of traditional media and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and others are the main source of news for billions of users. In the latest survey conducted by Pew Research Center, one in five adults in the US (20 percent) get their news through various social media platforms. Even though digital platforms for news are increasing at a rapid rate, there is a decrease in the amount of time people spend reading on the web. A majority of the people would just scroll through their newsfeed and read an occasional headline or watch a short video regarding a news item. As per research, an average visitor spends 15 seconds or less skimming through an article and watch a video for an average of 10 seconds.

The rise of fake news

It is well-established that social media commands a great influence on the type of news content we consume. They have become the gatekeepers and any news article has got to have maximum likes and shares in order to be displayed in our newsfeed. In this way, social media companies control the type of news we consume and another dimension of this is the proliferation of fake news. Just because of the sensational nature of the news, people readily share such kind of fake news without paying any heed to verify facts regarding that news or checking in detail the entire article rather than just the headline. In this race for likes and viral content, authentic news has been buried into oblivion and fake news is more popular than the truth.

Pace and quantum of news has increased exponentially

Not much far in the past, the pace and the quantum of news were reasonable, and people accessed newspapers or magazines or at the best tuned in to their television sets for the latest news and analysis. However, with the advent of internet, the pace of the news has increased manifold and if you are not tweeting about breaking news or posting about it and sharing the content at the very moment the story happens, you may probably have missed it forever. This has trivialized the news and more emphasis is now laid on the shareability and potential viral nature of the news than the actual substance and analysis that were once hallmarks of news.

More convenient to consume news online

With the rapid proliferation of the internet worldwide, it is exerting a huge influence on the way people consume news and has become the primary source of news for a large section of the population. Within the online domain, social media has become hugely popular and dissemination of new is becoming of the primary aims of the various social media platforms. All these social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, to name a few have designed their own algorithms that determine which news feed is going to make it to our screens and what type of news we consume. This rise of the social media in the realm of news has corresponded to the decline in the popularity of newspapers and television, who used to dominate the world of news right since the sixties. However, with the rise of social media, consuming news has become more convenient and entertaining when compared with the newspapers or even news on the television. 

The decline of the newspaper industry

Consequently, the newspaper industry is in a downward spiral. As per the data available, in the year 2000, 47 percent of Americans used to read a newspaper every day and this figure declined to just 29 percent in 2012, such a dramatic fall within just a time of two years. The number of newspaper titles and the number of newspapers being sold in the United States has shrunk significantly and it seems that the newspaper industry can no longer be sustainable in the long run in the present state of affairs. It is clear that people are preferring to source their news from other sources. This shift has resulted in a decrease in billions of dollars in print advertising and this surely sounds a death knell for the newspaper industry in the United State, to say the least.

Conclusion

With the rapidly evolving technologies and the omnipresent nature of the internet, there is no looking back and we have to evolve with the changing nature of the news and the way we consume it. News is no longer a commodity now and it cannot be bundled up and sold to people in the form of newspapers. We have entered an era where truth has been sidelined and there is no single version of the actual news, but just one version of fake news competing with another version of fake news. And the blame lies squarely on social media.

However, all is not lost. We as a part of a responsible society should demand accountability and responsibility from the various social media platforms and discourage the spread of fake news. The rise of the online news has given rise to citizen journalism, and this is a new way to counter the hidden agenda of large corporations and the trivialization of the news. If we act as a responsible society and give due weight and importance of the real issues that are affecting large sections of the population and the whole world, then we can hope that such issues will surface from the background and generate a constructive debate.

This new-found power of the internet has empowered the responsible citizens to highlight the news that really matters like news concerning climate change, extremism, and the economy to name a few. What may constitute to be real news may vary as per the perspective of each individual, but what stands common is the need of all for authentic, verified and diverse nature of news that is not based on the number of likes and shares, but comes to the forefront due to the impact it has on the lives of the common people.

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Sandeep Trichal is a seasoned professional with experience of more than 8 years in the field of content writing, editing, blogging and developing a content strategy. With extensive exposure in various domains of writing he has the requisite expertise in article writing, blogs, e-mailers, e-books and other forms of writing as per the requirement.