How Social Media Negatively Affects Journalism
Social Media has rapidly increased over the past 10 to 15 years, and with that came many negative effects on the world of journalism and how journalists work.
The 21st century has brought journalists an abundance of new components to work with and against. The term “fake news” was coined within the past decade which made true journalistic work harder than before. Now, journalists have to take on not only their accurate and verifiable competitors, but the ones with false information and bad intentions as well.
There are common themes with “clickbait” journalists. Manipulation is a tool used to make the readers feel as though they are getting accurate information and news. This is dangerous because the audience may not know how to tell the difference between news that is skewed and news that is not.
The worst aspect of social media and how it affects journalism would have to be the competitive nature between platforms. Like Damon Martin says in a Tweet included above, “The race to be first has become a real plague in journalism, especially in the age of social media.”. The rush to report the news first on social media platforms has caused an increase in spreading false and inaccurate information.
Social media is an easy way to access multiple people at one time. Even if you stray away from using social media for news related information, it will always be easily attainable. This simple idea is what makes “fake news” so hard to stop. How can you keep skewed information away from millions of people?
Above I have included an in depth article about some of the positives and most of the negatives that social media has had on journalism. The web of social networking is endless, as made apparent in the article. The amount of social media platforms that impact journalists will only get longer.
Journalism will always have hurdles, and social media has proven it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Social media platforms need to work with journalists to prevent the spread of “fake news”, and encourage accurate reporting as opposed to fast reporting. The future of journalism will be shaped by social media’s future moves.
