While social networking sites are most commonly used by our youth as a way to stay in touch with friends, they are also being utilized as mediums for citizen journalism. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are used daily by people of all ages, spreading news stories to the community, sometimes before newspaper and TV reporters have a chance to cover the story. Because this information can be disseminated by anyone, it’s important that users don’t believe everything they read and check their facts.
When US Airways Flight 1549 miraculously landed safely in the Hudson River in New Jersey, Janis Krums snapped a picture from a nearby ferry that he instantly posted on Twitter. It wasn’t until later that he realized how many people reacted to his TwitPic, which resulted in the server crashing due to the overwhelming amount of views. Krums wanted to share what he considered to be a breaking news story with his followers on Twitter, and people were made aware of the story before news reporters had a chance to arrive on the scene. Twitter and other social networking sites are making it possible for people all over the world to spread news stories almost instantly.
Not only are social networking sites useful because of their ability to spread news faster than ever, but also their reach is continually growing. As of December 2008, Twitter had approximately 4.4 million users. Over 150 million people had joined Facebook, and Flickr had around 34 million users as of January 2009. Because of the massive amounts of users on social networking sites, the rate at which news stories spread is rapid. While citizen reporters may be spreading news faster than ever, the question of how much information is being disclosed depends on the social networking site.
Twitter and Facebook both have a limit as to how many characters one can write at once. Users of Facebook have a lot more room to elaborate on breaking news than people using Twitter, which limits a person to a maximum of 140 characters per message. Of course multiple Tweets by someone in succession could get around this problem, but the fact that the reporters message has boundaries could be viewed as a setback. The ability to post pictures alongside messages gives users more room to work with and could prove the authenticity of the information provided.
The chance of false information spreading instantly all over the world is a downfall with using social networking sites as a news source. While our generation seems to be adamant about checking facts, it’s important that people make sure the information they’re reading is true before they tell their friends about it. This sort of false news reporting could affect the reliability of people on social networking sites for information. However, the main objective of sites like Facebook and Twitter is to spread information about people and events, but they are not classified as news sites. If you are intelligent enough to use social networking sites, then you should be capable of siphoning through the information posted on them.
In my opinion the growing capabilities of social networking sites are improving the way people receive information today. I’ve never been a fan of reading the paper, and I didn’t start paying attention to news until I was a sophomore in college. However, ever since I joined the Facebook community, I would consider myself the most aware I’ve ever been in my life. Because I don’t think watching the 5 o’clock news is appealing to most kids growing up, if they are alerted of news stories via social networking sites then at least they’re becoming aware of current events. As I said earlier, users should have the common sense to check the news they read on Facebook and Twitter before they start believing it. As with any form of learning, everybody is different in the way they interpret messages. Social networking sites are giving people a more interesting way of receiving information on current events all over the world.
The January 2009 CNN article, Social-networking sites share breaking news, by Lisa Respers France inspired this blog entry:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/22/social.networking.news/index.html
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