HOW
ACTIVITIES OF BLOGGERS AND NON-JOURNALIST AFFECT THE OPERATION OF THE
TRADITIONAL MEDIA HOUSE AND WHAT STRATEGIES THE MEDIA HOUSES ARE USING TO
SURVIVE.
Our lives have been
made simple and interesting with every information just at a click of a mouse.
Hither to, sending messages to others was tedious; however the advent of media
has made it easier and interesting. In the early 1800s, inventors made progress
in sending symbols via electrical impulses over wires.
Color television emerged in the mid-1950s and
became dominant over black and white television. The radio, newspaper,
television were our main source of information.(Compton encyclopedia). The
traditional media refers to the old and primitive way of disseminating
information involving only one way of communication. It can also be called the
legacy media. The traditional media involves the use of print, radio,
television in disseminating information. For instance, here in Ghana as of in
the early 1800s, during the stay of the colonial masters, citizens relied on
the print news media especially for most of the news in the country. Until the
emergence of the internet in the country, reliance on traditional media was
very high. With the advent of New Media, life has been very easy and interesting. Though many people do still read
news online that has been produced by traditional outlets, many users are now
expressing that they feel the traditional outlets are 'too slow' or that their
reporting has 'too much of an agenda'. The prevalence of mobile devices that
can record pictures, video and have constant internet connections, combined
with the growing popularity of social networking sites has actually made it
possible for people to produce and share news themselves.
Consequently citizen journalists – ordinary people doing the job of reporters –
are everywhere
New media is a way in which the delivery of
news and information follows many-to-many format. It is networkable, dense, compressible
and interactive even though new media has greater advantage over traditional
media, it evolved from the old media. Sean Carton in his July 2009 blog posting
wrote social media "new" while it has only recently become part of
mainstream culture and the business world. People have been using digital media
for networking, socialising and information gathering- almost exactly like now
for over 30 years. This explains that social media has been in existence for
some period of time and has assumed different names due to the revolution of
media technological development.
These traditional media are losing their
prominence, due to intense competition from the social media. The advent of
social media has affected the operation of traditional media. Social media is
able to cover a vast range of production and distribution. For instance, the
Turkey demonstration against the Government was reported nonprofessional journalists
who were citizens. . (Citizen Journalist: how social media reveals the truth in
Turkey) online. Available at: (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.
The presence of social
media is gradually deleting various existing forms of traditional or legacy
media. Europe editor for New York times Richard. W. Stevenson said "the
reality is that, print‑ across the world is really a tough business now".”
(New York Times goes global by re-branding IHT-ABC news (online)available at:
http:// www.abcnews.go.com). Social media wields greater power over the traditional
media.
With social media there
is no Bureaucracy as compared to traditional media. With the traditional media,
reporters are assigned various assignments which passes through channels of
command until it gets to the editor. But with the invention of social media,
people can tweet, Facebook from the comfort of their homes, school, on the
street or even in "trotro”. Moreover, the cost effect on the audience is
very low. This is encouraging people to rely on these social media for information.
Why would i spend about GHC 20.00 on a magazine when i can get the information
from their website?
In addition, Social
media introduced infotainment thus providing information and entertainment at
the same time. It also creates conversational platforms for the audience.
People share their thoughts on issues through blogs, twitter, Facebook and
others for people to easily get access to it. The newspapers, magazines and
other traditional media created less or no space for audience to share views on
certain issues. In social media, the citizen journalists, bloggers and others
just put any information out there without checking for accuracy and
credibility since they lack professionalism whiles trained journalists follow
the right trends before disseminating information and have lay- down procedures
which also leads to biases sometimes. With the social media, they report the
news just as it is without any interference or personal interest. For instance,
the Boston bombing suspect was wrongly accused and hunted down due to unchecked
facts which were posted on Reddit. ( Jayson Demers ,http://www.huffington.com).
In other to close the
gap between these two media worlds, the old media need to use strategies in
order to survive extinction.
There should be
collaboration between the two media worlds. This does not mean a displacement
of the old media but rather the interactions between all media platforms both
old and new. This can also be known as media convergence.
TV3 is doing well with media convergence.
After news 360, they read views from their funs on Facebook and Twitter. They
give them (audience) the platform to what they have in mind making it interactive.
Hence the old media should;
·
Provide on the Job training for their
workers and they should recruit competent workers with technological
background. For instance Gilbert, a former Harvard business school professor
told how he quickly molded the Deseret’s Web strategy into an entity with its
own staff, recruiting employees with experience in the internet world rather
than in traditional journalism. ( Gilbert: Only 1in10’old media will survive)
(Online). Available at (http://www.NetNewscheck.com).
·
Ensure their publications are more
interactive and easy to understand.
·
The old media should make a transition
from the single platform (print) to multi-platform that is publishing news
online as well as using print.
Maud Fadi- lawntennis360gh.blogspot.com
Edwina Ivy Addo- ivyedwinablog.tumblr.com
Abigail Afatsawo- afatsawoabigail.wordpress.com
Ruby Esi Quarshie- dentalhealthrubisinfo.blogspot.com
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