Advantages & Disadvantages of Using Social Media As A News Source
As social media became major tools for people especially for young, the form of journalism also changed. Nowadays, any people can be a journalist using online platform such as Facebook and Twitter. The speed of spreading/sharing information is much faster compared to before when we had only TV or mouth to mouth as a sharing tool. In this article, I will talk about some advantages and disadvantages of social media in regards of journalism.
Advantage
Quick to Deliver the News
“News is a fundamentally shared experience.” — Olivia Ma. As this quote states, in this day and age, we all sharing experience more in real time through developed communication tools. This is really useful especially in emergency situation such as earthquake, tsunami, and terrorism. People can report those situation, share, and take action based on that.
No Media Manipulation
When you see news on the TV or any reliable news article, you don’t really suspect if it’s fake news or not because it’s reliable. However, those mass media sometimes can manipulate audience, and also most of them are sponsored so they usually are side of their sponsors and can’t against them. While on social media, it’s easier to see others involving in the discussion so you’re not likely to consume given information that is one- sided opinion although some people sometimes share the fake news on purpose
Globalization
On social media, you can easily connect with people who are far from you, or live in different countries. So we can easily reach out to the news happening around the world even just the little news. Also journalist can now easily collect the evidence without actually be there.
Disadvantages
Spread of Fake News
Yes, the speed of spreading news is advantage at some points, but it could be the disadvantages because fake news is also shared so quickly.
Because of spreading of fake news, the unnecessary panic could happen.
Toilet shortage happened all around the world during the beginning of pandemic, and in Japan, the spreading of false rumor that is covid has caused a toilet paper shortage, that made them people to stock up on not only toilet paper, also many paper products.
Biased/Offended Journalist
I previously mentioned that anyone could be a journalist on social media, if person with influence such as celebrity and politician share biased or offensive information, that could cause mislead of followers.
The advantages of using social media as a source could also be disadvantages. To take advantage of benefits of using social media regard to journalism, it’s important to distinguish which information is good for you or not, or factual or not. This article may help you to spot real and fake news.
