Traditional Journalism in the age of Social Media

The outcome of this year’s presidential election in the U.S. has caused many people to reflect on the role of media in it, as illustrated by the podcast “On the Media”.  The podcast talks about reporters of what could be considered traditional journalism (e.g. CBS, NPR, and Fox News) and their failure to predict the outcome of the election.

While these media outlets are still kicking themselves for “missing the story”, many people have turned to social media outlets, notably Facebook, to seek blame for this particular “story” happening in the first place.  For example, Facebook has recently come under fire for allegedly containing a high number of fake news stories; News stories reporting on Trump’s accomplishments, which were never actually accomplished, for instance. On top of that, social media heavily panders to its users. If you consume mostly liberal media, news from liberal media is what you’re going to get on your newsfeed. Some people have speculated that this could, in part, have led to a sense of false security among democratic voters, resulting in a smaller voter turnout. And if you consume mostly conservative media, you were probably not confronted with a lot of factual criticism of Donald Trump.

I think that social media was, and is a real threat to traditional journalism, mostly because of easy access and attention-grabbing headlines and simplified news articles. Through news on social media, we stay in our comfort zone, in more than one way. But this election cycle has led people to reevaluate their relationship with the media and I think that people, whom the results of the election pulled out of their comfort zone, will now be looking towards traditional journalism to stay informed. In my opinion, people are now more eager to hold the media accountable and are more aware of its influence. The election was a rude awakening for some, and I suspect that people will be more critical in their consumption of the media, and especially more careful where they get their news from. In conclusion, while I think that social media is indeed a threat to traditional journalism, I also think that it can hold its own, especially in today’s political climate.