Makenzie Alger

Social Media is Not a “News” Thing

 

Like most people, I’m on all things social media. I have a Facebook profile, Twitter page, and account on Instagram. I’m on Pinterest to find recipes, LinkedIn to meet employers, and Snapchat to send funny photos of myself with dog ears to my friends. Nowadays, this is how we, millennials, communicate. Some say it’s sad, that our generation is glued to our phones. But isn’t this just the path that advancements in technology and new, growing businesses have paved for us?

 

Yes, it is.

 

In light of the political and economic climate, breaking news is swarming every channel with retweets, likes, and shares. Media has changed a great deal in the past several years, and now social media platforms have influenced news consumption more than ever before. However, this news on every person’s timeline is not of wholesome truth and should not be the sole source for information about the world we live in.

 

Research shows that 54 percent of Americans between the age of 18 and 29 use social networking sites to get news. The millennial generation has grown up with social media as an element in everyday life. It’s what we know. I’m a part of this demographic and can vouch for that. I’ve been on social media since I was old enough to have a phone, which was around 12 or 13 years old. Being so young, we were all likely to be easily persuaded by our peers. Social media was (and still continues to be) the place for that to happen.  

 

Social networking sites and other media platforms are means for interaction. These platforms operate on the basis of self-created content. Platforms allowing personalized posts mean personalized opinions. And personalized opinions mean some people definitely don’t hold back. Posts may seem like they have sole truth backed behind them, but with everyone’s right to freedom of speech, it’s essentially your word against theirs. Not to mention, these opinionated posts tend to generate lots of traffic containing conflicting opinions belonging to other viewers, which may consequently skew readers in formulating opinions of their own.

 

Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook used to follow a reverse chronological order, displaying most recent posts at the top of the feed and older posts later on. This has since changed with new algorithms set forth to promote popular and sponsored content. Like author Hannah Zajac says in her article for the Odyssey, “people seemed to think they are well informed after scrolling through social media, but did social media tell them about Kabul?” These algorithms seem to think that content posted by people with tons of followers trumps content that affects all of us as citizens in our nation. Kylie Jenner just had her baby and it’s already the most liked photo on Instagram in the history of all Instagram posts. Social media has taught us to pay attention to stuff that gets likes, not stuff that actually matters and may affect us personally.

 

With the abundance of tweets getting shoved to the bottom of the feed (that clearly no one ever reaches, am I right?), stuff gets outdated pretty fast. Since the algorithms aren’t timely anymore, how can breaking news be considered breaking if you find out about it days after it happened?

 

The whole idea of the popularity takeover is brainwashing social media users in terms of what can be considered real or fake. “Fake news” is huge, and the reason behind this is because modern media outlets forgo independence, inquiry, and verification in order to garner attention, according to Geoffrey Baym who writes about media through television. The same concepts can be applied to modern outlets as well.

 

Not everything about social media is bad, obviously. Sure, it gives us a place to see what everyone is talking about and to provide our own input on what matters most to us. But the downfall to this is simple. Opinions do not equal facts. And with such a form of open expression, the line is drawn very thin.

 

As technology advances and companies come out with the next best thing, it’s important for us to remember media’s roots. Trust your local weatherman; if he says it’s going to rain, I’d trust him over my 82-year-old grandma on Facebook any day of the week.

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Baym, Geoffrey. “The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism.” Political Communication, 22, (2005). 259–276. 

 

Mitchell, Amy, et al. “Appendix A: Detailed Tables.” Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, 11 Jan. 2018, www.pewglobal.org/2018/01/11/detailed-tables-global-media-habits/.

 

Zajac, Hannah. “Social Media Is Not A News Source.” The Odyssey Online, 7 Feb. 2018, www.theodysseyonline.com/social-media-not-news-source.