Introduction

The aim of this paper is to clarify the theoretical approach towards old or traditional
media, to explain the concepts of new media and social media and to show the connection
between these two terms that include a historical development, advantages and disadvantages.
The first chapter defines media and the two different media types. The oldest media
forms are newspapers, magazines, journals, newsletters, and other printed material. These
publications are collectively known as the print media and in the last period its decrease
started being obvious since the technology is evolving quickly. Broadcast media includes
television, radio, music, movies, video games etc. These represent the traditional media. The
internet is slowly transforming the news media because websites can provide text, audio, and
video information, all of the ways traditional media are transmitted. The web also allows for a
more interactive approach by allowing people to personally tailor the news they receive via
personalized web portals, newsgroups, podcasts, and RSS feeds. Frequently, this new media
type is called multimedia. Social media is being defines as websites and applications that
enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
The second chapter represents a historical approach towards media and tries to show the
effects on the changes that happened throw-out time. For example, the medium changed, so
obviously the method of writing had to change. Nowadays, journalists have to learn how to
write for online, in a succinct manner necessary for the Internet page. They have to shoot
video news, audio news, anything that will make it easier to pass the information on to the
public. The readers, on the other hand, expect for all of these extensions to be incorporated
fast.
The third chapter is trying to explain by giving some examples how traditional media
and new media interact, how they changed in time and what exactly is the media landscape
nowadays. From books to E-books and wikis, from newspapers to blogs, from music records
to Pandora, from newspapers and magazines to ezines, from radio to podcasts, from television
to full episodes on the web, from telephone to VOIP, from films to amateur videos on the
web, from professional photography to Flickr and Picasa, from live art to museums on the
web, everything has changed and became easier to achieve, view, listen, create etc.
It is safe to state that time is really valuable and distance can make it
harder for an interview to take place, but with the help of social media, a
journalist can now conduct an investigation or an interview through social
1

media tools. But, while there are a lot of advantages of new media, there
is also a big amount of disadvantages which are discussed in the paper.

1. Definition of Media
In my aim of better understanding what the term media means I will present some of
the definitions that different dictionaries contain. According to Oxford Dictionary media
represents the main means of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the
Internet) regarded collectively.1 Taking a look at the Cambridge Dictionaries media is
described as the internet, newspapers, magazines, television, etc., considered as a group. 2 A
more wide definition of media is found in the Business Dictionary communication channels
through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are
disseminated; media includes every broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as
newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet; media
is the plural of medium and can take a plural or singular verb, depending on the sense
intended.3
The oldest media forms are newspapers, magazines, journals, newsletters, and other
printed material. These publications are collectively known as the print media and in the last
period its decrease started being obvious since the technology is evolving quickly. Broadcast
media includes television, radio, music, movies, video games etc. These represent the
traditional media.
The history of mass media can be traced back to the days when dramas were performed
in various ancient cultures. This was the first time when a form of media was "broadcast" to a
wider audience. The first dated printed book known is the "Diamond Sutra", printed in China
in 868 AD, although it is clear that books were printed earlier. Movable clay type was
invented in 1041 in China. However, due to the slow spread of literacy to the masses in China,
and the relatively high cost of paper there, the earliest printed mass-medium was probably
1 Oxford English Dictionary (2016), Oxford English Dictionary- The definitive
record of the English language, [online], Available at: www.oed.com, [Accessed 3
January 2016];
2 Cambridge Dictionaries Online (2016), The most popular online dictionary and
thesaurus for learners of English, [online], Available at:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/, [Accessed 3 January 2016];
3 Business Dictionary (2016), [online], Available at:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/ , [Accessed 3 January 2016];
2

European popular prints from about 1400. Although these were produced in huge numbers,
very few early examples survive, and even most known to be printed before about 1600 have
not survived. The term "mass media" was coined with the creation of print media, which is
notable for being the first example of mass media, as we use the term today. This form of
media started in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press allowed the mass production of
books to sweep the nation. He printed the first book, a Latin Bible, on a printing press with
movable type in 1453. The invention of the printing press gave rise to some of the first forms
of mass communication, by enabling the publication of books and newspapers on a scale
much larger than was previously possible. The invention also transformed the way the world
received printed materials, although books remained too expensive really to be called a massmedium for at least a century after that. Newspapers developed from about 1612, with the first
example in English in 1620; but they took until the 19th century to reach a mass-audience
directly. The first high-circulation newspapers arose in London in the early 1800s, such as The
Times, and were made possible by the invention of high-speed rotary steam printing presses,
and railroads which allowed large-scale distribution over wide geographical areas. The
increase in circulation, however, led to a decline in feedback and interactivity from the
readership, making newspapers a more one-way medium.
The phrase "the media" began to be used in the 1920s. The notion of "mass media" was
generally restricted to print media up until the post-Second World War, when radio, television
and video were introduced. The audio-visual facilities became very popular, because they
provided both information and entertainment, because the colour and sound engaged the
viewers/listeners and because it was easier for the general public to passively watch TV or
listen to the radio than to actively read. 4
The internet is slowly transforming the news media because websites can provide text,
audio, and video information, all of the ways traditional media are transmitted. The web also
allows for a more interactive approach by allowing people to personally tailor the news they

4 Wikipedia- The free encyclopedia, (2016), [online], Available at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media, Accessed 20 April 2016;
3

receive via personalized web portals, newsgroups, podcasts, and RSS feeds. Frequently, this
new media type is called multimedia.5
These information highways (the focus is based on more than one channel television,
radio, computer, printed press) are changing the traditional way of journalism due to the
intersection of many factors:
a)The media convergence the journalist is obliged to produce messages according to the
written news, but also for radio, television and blogs;
b)

Hypermedia the creation of some texts which through variated modalities of escape

are swamping the consumer into an endless spiral of messages;

c)

Interactivity the audiences are becoming active, they are involved in the creation

process, be it by comments, be it by text writing (the case of bloggers);

d)

Fragmentation and personalization of messages we are dealing with active

audiences, therefore the information needs to be edited according to the cyberspace (a virtual
space

in

which

multiple

communities

of

people

are

using

computer-mediated

communication).6
Maybe the most dramatic changes that this new medium is bringing are connected to
the way in which we communicate, to the ways in which the information is transmitted and
received. The message is highly personalized and the reader has now the possibility of
becoming a broadcaster. The classical definition of mass-media does not apply anymore to the
internet. We are now dealing with messages that are not exclusively created by professionals
for a large, heterogeneous, passive public because the limits and borders between the
mediated communication and the interpersonal communication are being erased. The public
selects what is interested in and more than that, it can give a feedback at a certain level which
was not offered by the traditional media.7
Not considered at all traditional media and being seen as one of the most important and
used types of media came also with the growth of the internet and it is represented by social
media. By social media, people can interact, discuss, and be involved in the creation, not
5 Monnet, Dominique, (1998), Multimedia, Paris, Flammarion, p. 9;
6 Coman, Mihai, (2007), Introduction into the mass-media system, Iai, Polirom,
p. 26;
7 Ulmanu, Alexandru-Bradut, (2009), The Journalism Handbook, Iasi, Polirom, p.
635;
4

being just passive viewers. So, what exactly is social media? We can simply type on one of
the biggest search engines (Google) social media definition and immediately a basic answer
will pop out, but an answer that contains the most important side of social media
(participation): websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to
participate in social networking. In 1993, Bruce Sterling was describing the internet as
headless, anarchic, million-limbed and spreading like bread-mold and in 2013, Edward
Snowden was defining it as a system that you reveal yourself to in order to fully enjoy, a TV
that is watching you , all this proving that everyone is affected by this phenomenon and is
involved in it, be it because of personal reasons, because of political reasons, because of
religious reasons or be if because of many other reasons.
Traditionally, consumers used the Internet to simply expend content: they read it, they
watched it, and they used it to buy products and services. Increasingly, however, consumers
are utilizing platforms such as content sharing sites, blogs, social networking, and wikis to
create, modify, share, and discuss Internet content.
Social media is best understood as a group of new kinds of online media, which share
most or all of the following characteristics:
a)Participation: social media encourages contributions and feedback from everyone who is
interested by blurring the line between media and audience;
b)

Openness: there are rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content and

most of social media services are open to feedback and participation (voting, commenting,
sharing);
c)

Conversation: unlike the traditional media which is based on one-way communication,

social media is seen as a two-way communication process;

d)

Community: social media allows communities to form fast and communicate

effectively by sharing common interests;

e)

Connectedness: the majority of social media use connections by using links to other

websites, resources and people.

Social media has some properties which make it stronger than the traditional media:
a)

Accessibility: social media is easily accessible and takes minimal or no costs to use, it

is easy to use and it is simple to connect with others and being part of a community (everyone
is empowered to speak up);

b)

Speed: all the content created is immediately available to everyone as soon as it is

published, the answers are near instantaneous. Therefore, the dialogue is happening in realtime;
c)

Interactivity: by evolving from traditional media, social media offers a two-way

communication and the users can interact with each other;

d)

Longevity/ volatility: social media is accessible for a long period of time, maybe

forever. Moreover, the content can be edited, updated or erased anytime;

e)

Reach: the internet offers an unlimited reach to all content available. Anyone can

access it from anywhere and social media offers the same facility to the users that can share
anything with anyone they like.
The kinds of internet services associated with social media include the following:
a)

Blogs: a blog is an online journal in which pages are displayed in reverse

chronological order;
b)

Wikis: a collective website where any participant is allowed to modify any page or

create a new page using her Web browser;

c)

Social bookmarking: they allow users to organize and share links to websites;

d)

Social network websites: web based services that allow individuals to construct a

public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with
whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made
by others within the system
e)

Status-update services: also known as microblogging services, they allow people to

create and share short updates about people or events and to see updates created by others;
f)

Virtual world content: game-like virtual environments in which users can interact (e.g.

by creating avatars that can interact with each other);

g)

Media sharing sites: allow users to post videos, music or photographs.

But in this media change, social media is not the only one that has an important role.

Digital journalism or online journalism had to occur in a period of time when people do not
spend that much time or money when it comes to printed media. Digital journalism is a
contemporary form of journalism where editorial content is distributed via the Internet as
opposed to publishing via print or broadcast. The entire product is presented solely or in
combination as text, audio, video and some interactive forms, and disseminated through
digital media platforms.
6

The impact of digital journalism is huge and made a big difference. For example, this
type of journalism allows for connection and discussion at levels that print does not offer on
its own. People can comment on articles and start discussion boards to discuss articles. Before
the Internet, spontaneous discussion between readers who had never met was impossible.
People can now add to the story and bound with other people that are interested in the same
subject. This part represents a big portion of digital journalism. By using the components of
the new medium, digital journalism can consist in a variety of media, like: audio, video,
photography. Due to the quick response and the short period of time that is required for
posting news, digital journalism allows the sources to provide quick, efficient, and accurate
reporting of breaking news in a matter of seconds. Journalists are able to keep readers up-todate in just a few seconds. The speed in which a story can be posted has a two-way side: print
journalism did not allow us to offer fast information to the public, but on the other hand, this
high speed of sharing may lead to not so correct or accurate information.
The lack of a real editor in digital journalism created the opportunity of the
appearance of citizen journalism. Because of the Internet, many people can have access to the
information network and can add their own forms of journalism. This allows people who want
to share something important that happened in their area of interest without being
professional. The advantage in citizen journalism is represented by the lack of borders. For
example, some information that normally could not be investigated by the press can now be
released and reported by citizen journalists (in countries in which the censorship of the press
is high or in which freedom of the press is limited). For citizen journalism to be effective and
successful, there needs to be citizen editors, their role being to solicit other people to provide
accurate information and to mediate interactivity among users. There are also cases in which
citizen journalist provide information and write articles that afterwards are being processes
and edited by professional journalists.
Print media started to be viewed as old, as time and money consuming, which is the
reason why people are focusing on the use of online newspapers. An electronic newspaper is a
self-contained, reusable, and refreshable version of a traditional newspaper that acquires and
holds information electronically. If we think about it logically, the future is the new media, the
internet and the development of technology, so in a world in which we do not even have to
move from our home in order to satisfy our basic needs such as food, in a world in which we
can work from home in front of a computer, in a world in which the space and the distance
7

became smaller thanks to the internet, it actually makes sense that people want to simplify the
process of getting informed, making it faster and more personal by having the option of
getting involved in the creation or adding to the creation of someone, or just purely comment
on it with other people which are interested.
The medium changed, so obviously the method of writing had to change. Nowadays,
journalists have to learn how to write for online, in a succinct manner necessary for the
Internet page. They have to shoot video news, audio news, anything that will make it easier to
pass the information on to the public. The readers, on the other hand, expect for all of these
extensions to be incorporated fast. After all, we are in the era on which we do not see people
reading a heavy, big size newspaper in the metro, but we do see everyone with a Kindle in
their hand, a tablet or a smartphone.

2. Historical approach
Newspapers have online blogs. Television channels have fan sites for their shows. In
the historical perspective, we explore the various influences on today's new media, which
could not exist without the convergence of media or, indeed, without the convergence of
technology of the past several decades.

1834 First known "computer" Charles Babbage's Analytic Engine

1876 Alexander Graham Bell transmits speech -- OK, he yells: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want
to see you."
1926 - 1940 Evolution of TV
1941 first television commercial
1946 ENIAC the first electronic computer
1964 SABRE airline reservation system - First automated electronic reservation and booking
system using remote teletype machines.
1948 UNIVAC I the first commercial computer
1965 Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS) operational on and off campus.
1969 ARPANET, the original Internet, begins operation
1962 First computer game "Spacewar!"
1972 Intel microprocessor
1972 Ethernet LAN spec's formulated
1972 email on ARPANET @ used to mean 'at'
1973 Xerox Alto uses a "desktop" graphical user interface (GUI)
1979 Steve Jobs visits Xerox PARC
1980 TCP/IP
1984 Domain Name System (DNS) introduced
1988 Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
1991 WWW
1993 Mosaic first browser
1994 First banner ads on hotwired.com
1994 WebCrawler, first web search engine.
1995 AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe come online.
1996 VOIP
1996 ICQ free instant messaging
1999 Napster Is Released
1999 Google Passes Beta Testing
2001 Ipod
2001 Wikipedia
2001 Napster Shuts Down
9

2002 Friendster
2002 Second Life (first public demonstration)
2003 Myspace
2003 Skype
2003 Technorati blog search Erngine
2003 Linkedin
2003 Google acquires Blogger
2004 Flickr
2004 Facebook
2004 podcasting - internet audio programming
2005 YouTube

The critical events or milestones included in a timeline might be those relevant to

technology, to media, or even to the national defense effort. Some such timelines may even
begin in prehistory or in antiquity, and it is worth noting that examination of early media
say, cave paintings, writings, stories, songs is quite informative as well as relevant. For
example, most media in antiquity existed in the universe of the mind. Storytellers musicians
had to be pretty smart; they memorized everything. There were some books (scrolls) but
they were painstakingly handwritten and thus extremely expensive and for most people,
inaccessible. There was also very little interest in the notion of ownership of media unlike
the intense discussions about intellectual property and copyright going on today. In fact, in
ancient times, it was acceptable to write something and attribute it to a well-known
personality as 'author'.
There are several excellent timelines available, for example, See Drury (2003). To illustrate
this approach, the next table contains a brief timeline of relevant technologies.
10

The historical perspective, illustrated with this sort of timeline, helps to clarify the
antecedent technologies that had to be in place before the new media technologies of today
could be developed. In addition, we can easily see how the pace of innovation has become
increasingly rapid as we move forward. Furthermore, the trend towards increased
interconnectivity, with its attendant globalization is evident as well.8

3. Traditional Media in the context of New Media- how

they interact, how they changed in time
One way to define the new media and their associated technologies
is to contrast them to the old media. Traditional media newspapers,
magazines, radio, and television are communication delivery systems.
These are relatively independent, static, and historical. Today, traditional
media are almost always paired with new media newspapers and
magazines have online versions, as well as their own blogs, television
networks produce a great deal of online content related to their
programming, etc. Some of this evolution has been due to the concern
that the new media is growing at the expense of the old media; and old
media must evolve to survive. Voithofer (2005) specifically contrasts the
new media with old media counterparts by describing the "newness" of
the new media in terms of changes in production due to convergence of
technology and media, storage (digitization and indexing), presentation (in
a video display of sorts), and distribution over telecommunication
networks. The following table shows some examples of the old media vs.
the new.
Books Ebooks, wikis
Journalism blogs
Music pandora
Newspapers, Magazines ezines

8The New Media Technologies: Overview and Research Framework, [online],

Radio at:
podcasts
Available
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228193979_The_New_Media_Technologi
Television Full episodes on the web
es_Overview_and_Research_Framework,
[Accessed 13 April 2016];
Telephone VOIP
Film Amateur videos on the web
Photography Flickr, Picasa
Art Museums on the web

11

The past few years have brought wholesale transformations of established

and existing media - e.g., photography, animation, television, film,
newspaper. Computer-mediated communication and collaboration - e.g.,
email, chat room, IM, discussion forums, teleconferencing, avatar-based
virtual worlds, VOIP, mobile telephony, blogs, wikis have changed our
organizations in profound ways. Even consumption is different in the age
of new media; we are seeing more active post-purchase behavior in the
form of, e.g., mashups, media sharing, and the molding of digital media.
People are used to reading newspapers, listening to the radio or
watching television for the last and the hottest news. With the
development of the Internet, massive amounts of people started seeking
for the news online, due to the lack of time or just because of the desire of
finding information as soon as possible. Newspapers, television and radio
channels all over the world have nowadays an online version. But what
came with the Internet was also social media and people tend to go there
in order to be informed. Another phenomenon that came with social media
was the fact that journalists started taking it and using it as a source,
either if it is a reliable one or not. More and more journalists are taking
information from social media and using it in traditional media.
In 2014, ING has performed an international study into the impact of
social media on the activities of PR professionals & journalists and the way

12

social media has influenced the news and the way news is disseminated. 9
The research showed the following discoveries:

Social media are the main source of information for 50% of the

journalists, despite the low degree of reliability.

The peoples opinion is more reliable than a statement issued by an

organization.
Publish first, correct if necessary is the order of the day.
Journalists (70%) act differently social media than in traditional

media.
Journalists are nowadays less fact-checking (44%); crowd-checking
(55%) is becoming more important. Journalism is more driven by

clicks and views.

32% of journalists find posts on social media to be unreliable. It is

nevertheless the main source of information for 50% of journalists.

80% of journalists occasionally publish without fact-checking.
Journalists feel they are less bound by rules of journalism on social
media than in traditional media. Journalists share their personal

opinion more openly via social media than via traditional media.
Social media are important for the performance of daily activities for

72% of the journalists.

Journalism can no longer operate without social media for 68% of the

press.
The quality of the reach is higher via social media than via

traditional media in the mind 62% of journalists.

Journalists find that their influence has grown due to social media.
And if so, journalists started going on social networks to find

information, how does it work? For example, the news of Bin Laden's death
not only came as a shock and surprise to the public, but the way in which
the information broke on real-time social media heavyweight, Twitter.
Although there is speculation as to where the news first appeared, it
cannot be denied that social media played a huge role in spreading the
news. Before CNN or The New York Times confirmed that U.S. Navy SEALS
9 Impact of social media on news, (2014), [online], Available at:
https://www.ingcb.com/media/817226/infographic-impact-of-social-media-onnews-sming14.pdf, [Accessed 10 January 2016];
13

did in fact kill Osama bin Laden, millions had already taken to their Twitter
and Facebook pages to virally disperse the information. The traditional
media followed the social network in question and then confirm the death,
having also other official sources.
Clearly, the digital age has not only revolutionized the way news is
disseminated (virally and immediately), but also the way in which we
consume it. Thanks to the instant publishing capabilities of social sites like
Twitter, we're able to both individually broadcast and communally watch
as events unfold in real time across the globe. But traditional journalism
still has a crucial role to play, especially when it comes to sharing the
bigger picture through a trained eye, verified sources and a contextualized
perspective. We must also keep in mind that Twitter though credited
with breaking the news of Osama Bin Laden's death is also responsible
for erroneously reporting the demise of countless others. At the end of the
day, there's a place for both at the table. In fact, they can often work in
tandem, with journalists harnessing the power of social media to acquire
and break vetted news. Twitter may yet be the news ticker of our time.10
Therefore, people have where to choose from nowadays, but
journalists are also trying clearly to use social media as a source, to calm
their rush of being first, of posting the first news. But in this process, they
tend to forget that a source should always be checked before being used.
There have been cases in which serious news channels as CNN took
information from social media without checking it and after it realizing
there were fake. That is the case of The death of Morgan Freeman.
Rumors of the actors alleged demise gained traction on Saturday after a
R.I.P. Morgan Freeman Facebook page attracted nearly one million of
likes. Those who read the About page were given a believable account
of the American actors passing: At about 11 a.m. ET on Saturday (January
09, 2016), our beloved actor Morgan Freeman passed away. Morgan
10 Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Kaplan Thaler Group
President, New York Women in Communications, Inc., (2015), [Online], Available
at: http://www.nywici.org/features/social-media-credibility, [Accessed 10 January
2016];
14

Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis. He will be missed but not
forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on
and liking this page. Hundreds of fans immediately started writing their
messages of condolence on the Facebook page, expressing their sadness
that the talented 78-year-old actor was dead. And as usual, Twittersphere
was frenzied over the death hoax. Whereas some trusting fans believed
the post, others were immediately skeptical of the report, perhaps learning
their lesson from the huge amount of fake death reports emerging about
celebrities over recent months. On Sunday (January 10) the actor's reps
officially confirmed that Morgan Freeman is not dead. He joins the long
list of celebrities who have been victimized by this hoax. He's still alive
and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet, they said.
While the current technological landscape shows tremendous
promise

and

presents

numerous

opportunities

for

news

and

its

practitioners, there are also potential pitfalls. While social media networks
churn out viable leads, there are also a lot of hearsays going on and even
hoaxes. In October 2008, a citizen journalist, a CNN iReport poster
reported that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after a
severe heart attack citing an anonymous source. The story turned out to
be false. CNN removed the story from the site and referred to it as
fraudulent. That false story impacted the financial markets. Apple's stock
in US trade took a major hit and dived to its lowest that year before
bouncing back. Newspapers report, the stock recovered around the time
the post was removed. Apple's stock, which opened at US$104 a share, fell
by 9 percent to US$94.65 before rebounding. In late April 2010, reports
surfaced on the internet that pop star Lady Gaga amputated one of her
legs just below the knee in the name of fashion. The story was rapidly
tweeted and retweeted that eventually news media outlets took notice of

15

the rumor. Upon verification from Lady Gagas record label however that
the story was untrue, the story was quickly discredited.11
Along with the ways that social media is transforming how
businesses communicate directly and honestly with their customers, social
media has also revolutionized how people receive and share news and
information. Because of this change with how people around the world
consume news, journalists -- and the media landscape -- have had to
quickly adapt, so here are the most common ways in which journalists use
social media, according to interviews conducted by PR Tool Kit:12

Story Creation
Over the past decade, digital tools and mobile platforms have had a

significant impact on journalistic practices and these platforms are

providing value as a media tool that can help reporters research and
discover story ideas.
Michele "Wojo" Wojciechowski said she uses Facebook, LinkedIn, and
Twitter to find her ideas. I've read about so many amazing people and
things going on in the world that I've found out about more quickly
because I read about them on social media. Often I read about ideas that
spur other ideas for me to write about.
Photojournalist Max Whittaker primarily uses Facebook to research
and discover his story ideas. "I see a wide array of news and social issues
through my Facebook feed. More importantly, I get little glimpses into the
daily lives of ordinary people. Important stories need to be told through
the prism of ordinary people. Facebook is one way I can see their struggles
and the issues that personally affect them, which can inform my coverage
and even instigate a story idea. I can also reach out to those same people
11 Jennifer, Alejandro, (2010), Journalism in the age of social media, University of
Oxford, Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper, [Online], Available at:
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Journalism%20in%20the
%20Age%20of%20Social%20Media.pdf, [Accessed 10 January 2016], p. 9;
12 Top 3 Ways Journalists Use Social Media, (2015), [Online], Available at:
http://www.smallbusinesspr.com/pr-learning-center/small-biz-articles/top-3-waysjournalists-use-social-media.html, [Accessed 10 January 2016];
16

and tell their story or enlist them in helping me find subjects that more
clearly illustrate a topic.
While story creation might be the most popular reason that
journalists use social media, it also allows you to keep a pulse on what is
happening in your local community. Jen Picard, Senior Producer, Insight
Capital Radio, primarily covers the Sacramento/Northern California regions
and she pays attention to local artists, newsmakers, reporters and other
journalists, just to see what they're doing, talking about, sharing and
promoting. Picard further commented, I do hit a lot of links that people
share if it crosses my interest levels (professional and personal) and that's
probably tied with trying to get sources or find people to talk with about
specific topics. We're always looking for the expert and the everyman. The
expert is easy - they're banging down our doors. But the everyman is far
more elusive. Social media can help us find/reach out to those people.

Finding Sources
If you are journalist that covers a regular beat, chances are youll

find yourself talking to the same people on a fairly regular basis. Actively
participating in conversations on various platforms can help to forge
relationships with sources that wouldnt have otherwise come to be.
Wojciechowski stated, Sometimes I use social media to find sources -- but
usually only if my standbys like ProfNet haven't turned up the specific type
of source I need. This especially helps when I need a source at the last
minute. There's always someone on social media.
Aly Walansky believes she is using social media extensively in her role as a
journalist: Sources for stories almost always share the stories, and their
audiences will often comment and lead to new story ideas (or just new
followers for both of us!).

Self-Promotion
If social media platforms have changed how you store, publish,

search and consume news, they now also provide journalists with a vehicle
of self-promotion. Individual journalists are now able to actively publicize
17

their work, develop their own online presence and engage with readers at
a level previously unseen in the industry.
Walansky stated, First and foremost, I share all my articles on Twitter and
Facebook - this is great for self-promotion, of course, but also great for
expanding ideas and sources.
Whittaker concluded with, I'll be honest, the most important way I use
social media is for self-promotion. I'm a freelance photojournalist and
getting, and keeping, the attention of photo editors is the only way I can
pay the bills while getting the stories I care about in front of readers.
Instagram has quickly become the premiere social media platform for
photographers, and photo editors love the constant stream of images from
photographers in the field.
In recent years, social media has notably impacted the direction and
practice of journalism and while these platforms are not replacing the
industry, they are adding another layer of information and providing
access to a wider range of voices.
Journalists are using social media and transmuting it to traditional
media, but that is not all the time an advantage or a good thing, when the
information taken are inaccurate or false. There are a lot of manners in
which traditional media uses social media as a source. For example,
nowadays a lot of the photos showed on television, in magazines or
newspapers come from personal Facebook, Instragram accounts (if a star
posts recent photos, journalists use those photos in order to complete the
news). Also, journalists can base their news on blogs of important opinion
leaders that are popular, trust worthy and seriously informed.
Tabloids are now full of photos of the stars, photos that are taken
from social media pages. There are news based just on the posts of a star.
Basically, journalist analyze dialogues between stars or just what a star
posted and comment on it, making a news out of it, in order to keep
informed people that might not have access to Twitter, Facebook or
Instagram.

18

Lets imagine a journalist has to write news about the latest

achievement of a science man, an actor, a politician. Nowadays, these
people post ideas, opinions, and feelings on their own social media. So,
when this happens, the journalist takes the information directly from there,
that person representing the best source, the primary source. Usually,
public people do not want to have the first reaction to an event in front of
the camera, so they tend to hide behind a computer from where they
write. This is the moment in which the journalist uses his skills and
transforms something from social media into a proper news for traditional
media.
Social media can also be used as a tool for traditional media. Time is
really valuable and distance can make it harder for an interview to take
place, but with the help of social media, a journalist can now conduct an
investigation or an interview through social media tools.

Conclusion
The historical perspective to clarify the antecedent technologies that had to be in place
before the new media technologies of today could be developed. In addition, we can easily see
how the pace of innovation has become increasingly rapid as we move forward. Furthermore,
the trend towards increased interconnectivity, with its attendant globalization is evident as
well.
Today, traditional media are almost always paired with new media
newspapers and magazines have online versions, as well as their own
blogs, television networks produce a great deal of online content related to
their programming, etc.

Some of this evolution has been due to the

concern that the new media is growing at the expense of the old media;
and old media must evolve to survive.
Over the past decade, digital tools and mobile platforms have had a
significant impact on journalistic practices and these platforms are
providing value as a media tool that can help reporters research and
discover story ideas.
If you are journalist that covers a regular beat, chances are youll
find yourself talking to the same people on a fairly regular basis. Actively
19

participating in conversations on various platforms can help to forge

relationships with sources that wouldnt have otherwise come to be.
If social media platforms have changed how you store, publish,
search and consume news, they now also provide journalists with a vehicle
of self-promotion. Individual journalists are now able to actively publicize
their work, develop their own online presence and engage with readers at
a level previously unseen in the industry.
The readers nowadays expect for all of these extensions to be incorporated fast. After
all, we are in the era on which we do not see people reading a heavy, big size newspaper in
the metro, but we do see everyone with a Kindle in their hand, a tablet or a smartphone.

Bibliography:
1. Ball-Rokeach, S.J., DeFleur, M.L. , (1976), A dependency model or
mass-media effects. Communication Research, White Plains, NY:
Longman.
2. Bentley, Clyde H. , (2011) , Citizen journalism: Back to the future?,
Cambridge.
3. Boyd, Dana M. and Ellison, Nicole B. , (2007), Social Network Sites:
Definition, History and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, Vol. 13, No. 1, Article 11.
4. Coman, Mihai, (2007), Introduction into the mass-media system, Iai,
Polirom.
5. Davis, D.K. , Baron, S.J., Mass Communication and Everyday Life: A
Perspective on Theory and Effects Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.
6. Dewing, Michael, (2012), Social Media: An introduction, Ottawa,
Library of Parliament.
7. Franklin, Bob, (2013), Digital Journalism, Taylor & Francis.
8. Lazarsfeld, P.F., Berelson, B., Gaudet, H. , (1944), The peoples
choice: How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign,
New York, Columbia University Press.
9. Madden, Mary, (2013), Data to Live By: Understanding the Social
Media + Technology Landscape, Miami, St. Thomas School of Law.
10.
McCombs, M.E. & Shaw, D. ,(1985), The Agenda-Setting
Function of Mass Media, Beverly Hills, Sage.

20

11.

McLuhan, M, (1964), Understanding media: The extentions of

men, New York, McGraw-Hill.

12.
McQuail, D. & Windahl, S. , (1993), Communication Models for
the Study of Mass Communication, London Longman.
13.
Monnet, Dominique, (1998), Multimedia, Paris, Flammarion.
14.
Noelle-Neumann, E, (1984),
The Spiral of Silence: Public
Opinion -- Our social skin, Chicago, University of Chicago.
15.
Scheufele, D.A. , (2001), Agenda-setting, priming, and framing
revisited:

another

look

at

cognitive

effects

of

political

communication. Communication abstracts, Thousand Oaks, Sage.

16.
Semetko, H. A., & Valkenburg, P. M. , (2000),
Framing
European politics: A content analysis of press and television news,
Journal of Communication.
17.
Taprial, Varinder and Kanwar, Priya, (2012), Understanding
Social Media, Frederiksberg, Ventus Publishing ApS.
18.
Tichenor, P.J., Donohue, G.A. , Olien, C.N. , (1970), Mass Media
Flow and Differential Growth in Knowledge, Public Opinion Quarterly
34, Colombia, University Press.
19.
Trevino, L.K., Lengel, R.K., Daft, R.L., (1987), Media Symbolism,
Media Richness and media Choice in Organizations. Communication
Research, Homewood, JAI Press.
20.
Ulmanu, Alexandru-Bradut, (2009), The Journalism Handbook,
Iasi, Polirom.
Online sources:
1. Business Dictionary (2016), [Available at:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/, [Accessed 10 April 2016].
2. Cambridge Dictionaries Online (2016), The most popular online
dictionary and thesaurus for learners of English, Available at:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/, [Accessed 10 April 2016].
3. Dictionary, (2016), Available at: http://dictionary.reference.com,
[Accessed 10 April 2016].
4. Impact of social media on news, (2014), [online], Available at:
https://www.ingcb.com/media/817226/infographic-impact-of-socialmedia-on-news-sming14.pdf , [Accessed 11 April 2016].

21

5. Jennifer, Alejandro, (2010), Journalism in the age of social media,

University of Oxford, Reuters Institute Fellowship Paper, Available at:
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Journalism
%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Social%20Media.pdf , [Accessed
13April 2016].
6. Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Kaplan Thaler
Group President, New York Women in Communications, Inc., (2015),
[Online], Available at: http://www.nywici.org/features/social-mediacredibility , [Accessed 13 April 2016].
7. Mayfield, Anthony, (2008), What is Social Media? , [e-book],
iCrossing UK Ltd, a Hearst Company, Available through:
http://www.icrossing.com/uk/ideas/fileadmin/uploads/ebooks/what_is
_social_media_icrossing_ebook.pdf , [Accessed 15 April 2016].
8. McQuail, D. , (2001), With More Handsight: Conceptual Problems and
Some Ways Forward for Media Use Research. Communications.
9. Oxford English Dictionary (2016), Oxford English Dictionary- The
definitive record of the English language, [online], Available at:
www.oed.com, [Accessed 13 April 2016].
10.
The New Media Technologies: Overview and Research
Framework, Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228193979_The_New_Medi
a_Technologies_Overview_and_Research_Framework, Accessed 13
April 2016.
11.
Top 3 Ways Journalists Use Social Media, (2015), [Online],
Available at: http://www.smallbusinesspr.com/pr-learningcenter/small-biz-articles/top-3-ways-journalists-use-socialmedia.html , Accessed 15 April 2016.
12.
Wikipedia- The free encyclopedia, (2016), Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media , Accessed 20 April 2016.

22