Wednesday 8 February 2012

Social Media, An Increase or Decrease In Quality?


I believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information. Social media just like the free market is based off of competition. For example when a company is faced with competition from another company its market share is at risk. This causes the company to improve their selection of goods and services in some way in order to maintain their market share. This same principle also applies to the way news companies and social media operates. 

Social media allows everyday people to become their own news reporters. This influx of news sources has created large amounts of competition for news companies. This increase of competition has forced news companies to increase their quality and accessibility of their news in order to compete. 

News companies have increased their quality of news by integrating twitter into their news programs in order to appeal to a larger audience. For example the CBC has their own twitter feed and often addresses questions by their twitter followers on their television channel. News companies have increased accessibility by introducing podcasts so people who don’t have the time to watch their television show or listen to their radio station can still receive news information. News companies also has their own facebook page as well so people can learn about what’s happening with the CBC while there on facebook.

By combing the social media and news companies together people get to experience the best of both worlds therefore creating the highest quality of news information. 

Here is a link to the CBC’s twitter feed if you are interested: http://twitter.com/cbcnews