Effectiveness of Social Media

Social media has changed the pace news has been delivered. With platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, a news article and be shared almost instantly by just sharing links on these social networking websites.

Source: Phan Thao Blog

For example, I woke up one morning and found the #prayforjapan hashtag trending on Twitter which immediately grab my attention. After clicking on the hashtag, it lead me to the devastating news of Japan being hit by earthquake and tsunami. Links to news websites and pictures where shared by many regarding the incident and I found in so much information in just a few minutes.

Al-Jassem (2010) states that social media makes a strong influence on all groups of society which brings individuals who share a common interest together as well as helping the community to act. The news of Japan's disaster was known to people around the world within an hour with live tweets and Facebook. People around the world was deeply sympathetic with the disaster and aid organizations such as Red Cross have used social media to help collect funds for disaster victims (Blackburn 2011).

Social media today has improved accessibility of instant information for people around the world and it has become a primary platform for people to get information and news. Social media has certainly broke the rules of traditional journalism where social media is a real-time content of breaking information to its mass audience (Solis 2010). But as we race towards the immediacy of news in social media, is does the news have credibility (Newsroom Magazine 2010)? According to a survey of perception by journalists, 84% of them believe that information in social media is much less reliable than traditional media due to the lack of-checking, verification and reporting standards (Solis 2010).

Besides the credibility and accuracy issues in social media, there are also advantages of social media. Schriver (1997, p. 375) implies that effective navigation of a complex document especially online is needed to guide readers to the order how information is read. Social media uses easy navigation to help readers to be directed to the links and images immediately and reading the whole article without distraction. Whereas, traditional newspapers sometimes direct readers to another page to read to rest of the article makes it difficult to navigate and sometimes getting distracted by other headlines which caused readers to sometimes forget to read the remaining article. Also unlike traditional media which is text heavy, social media uses multimodal texts (Walsh 2006, p.24) that enhances the readers ability of processing of information by integrating the text, images and graphics.

References

1. Al-Jassem, D 2010, Social media key to positive change, Arab News, 16 December, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article216506.ece>.

2. Blackburn, B 2011, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: Social Media Spreads News, Raises Relief Funds, ABC News, 11 March, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/japan-earthquake-tsunami-drive-social-media-dialogue/story?id=13117677>.

3. Newsroom Magazine 2010, Immediacy in Journalism - Enemy of Accuracy, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://newsroom-magazine.com/2010/opinion/essays/immediacy-in-journalism-enemy-of-accuracy/>.

4. Shriver, K 1997, 'Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures', Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Publication, New York, p. 361-441.

5. Solis, B 2010, The Information Divide: The Socialization of News, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://socialmediatoday.com/index.php?q=SMC/173658>.

6. Walsh, M 2006, 'The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,  Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Australia, vol. 29, p. 24-37.  

Insensitive publishing?

Have you ever come across publications being inconsiderate in articles? I came across some articles and it makes me wonder whether these publication do it to raise their sales in a non-ethical way or they are just being indifferent. 

 Source: dailycontributor.com

One of the recent cases is sparked by Berita Harian in March where they published a cartoon sketch showing Ultraman running away from the tsunami. At that time, Japan was hit by earthquake and tsunami which has killed thousands and many people homeless. The cartoon was condemned by the public and also their readers, saying that it's 'distasteful' and 'insensitive' (Wong 2011). The news on the cartoon sketch has also drawn international attention where it was reported on CNN iReport which puts Malaysia and the media in a bad light (dancingtiger 2011). Berita Harian later apologized for their mistake via Facebook, Twitter and its website.

According to Ward (2009), avoiding harm is one of the important conduct in journalism ethics. It's important for a journalist to not post harm directly or indirectly towards the public and readers. I find that this journalism ethics was not followed by Berita Harian as they let such an insensitive cartoon to be published out in the newspaper. It shows that the newspaper is not being careful or responsible enough where the editors were careless in overlooking the problem in the cartoon.

Pictures hold a better memory in people's mind than words (Shepard, cited in Schriver 1997, p. 407). This shows that pictures create a more impactful significance when interpreting them. With Japan's tsunami disaster being reported and sympathized by people around the world, the cartoon sketch that was published was not appropriate and opposite of what the news reports is trying to portray. This goes along with Schriver's (1997, p. 410) theory which states that visuals are not always helpful as in this case, sympathy and humour does not blend well together.

Therefore, responsibility is important in publishing to minimize harm where journalist and editors should not overlook facts and information no matter how trivial it is.

References
1.  Dancingtiger 2011, Malaysian newspaper pokes fun at recent tsunami disasters, CNN iReport, 13 March, viewed 10 June 2011, <http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-570978>.

2. Shriver, Karen A. 1997, 'Chapter 6: The interplay of words and pictures', Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Publication, New York, p. 361-441.

3, Ward, S.J.A 2009,  Nature of Journalism Ethics, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, viewed 11 June 2011, <http://www.journalismethics.info/research_ethics/nature_of_journalism_ethics.htm>.

4. Wong, P.M 2011, Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon, The Star, 14 March, viewed 10 June 2011, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/14/nation/8262608&sec=nation>.