PAPAYAW
ASAMOAH
STELLA
ELORM BIGSON
ISABELLA
KONADU AGYEMANG
ANIMAH
NKANSAH DOROTHY
EUGENE ADU
AYEH
Starting in 59 BC,
Julius Caesar had a daily sheet called Acta Diurna (daily event) posted around
Rome. In the mid1400, Johannes Gutenberg first used a printing press. Later on,
in the early 1900’s, radio technology was perfected with motion picture
technology closely behind. By 1930, the popularity of radio was spreading,
whilst some people were catching the first television broadcast. Throughout
the1930’s, 40’s and 50’s television progressed and ultimately worked its way
into family rooms and kitchens across the United States.
With the launch of
facebook in 2004, the founding of YouTube in 2005, the creation of twitter in
2006, social media is more extensively used for the dissemination of
information and news to the public by the public. These technologies have
allowed for even greater peer-to-peer engagement and interactive publics,
organization and mobilization of support, collating voters’ data by the
electoral commission, and the basic function of disseminating messages.
The advent of new media
has strongly affected the way through which information is spread to the masses
both negatively and positively. Citizen journalism is made possible as lay
members of the public play an active role in the process of collecting,
reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information to the public. In
order to understand who a citizen journalist is, let’s take an insight into
what citizen journalism is all about. The term citizen journalism refers to a
wide range of activities in which ordinary people contribute information or
commentary about news events through the use of social media like twitter,
facebook, YouTube and Google plus.
The traditional media,
which is also known as “the old media” deals with the old ways and procedures
of gathering, analyzing and disseminating news and information through the
hands of professionally trained journalists using the “few to many news
approach”. That is, a few qualified/trained journalists manufacturing news for
the masses to consume.
The new media involves
the active use of the internet. This is in the sense that the World Wide Web
facilitates the effective functionality and fluent interactivity. From influential
bloggers to community networks and activists, this new technology or new media activity
offers new competition for the main stream media. These groups are becoming an
alternative source of news as well as another option for politicians,
businessmen or other public figures to bypass the older media forms and outlets
to take their message to their supporters or followers. This is because the new
media provide a wide range of advantages.
First of all one can
tweet and check the status on their phones, this is because the internet is
available at the back of our pocket, and there’s no need to wait for the
morning newspaper to get news. Therefore the new media presents the audience
with absolute convenience. For instance channels like RTE, SkyNews, FOX and CNN
have a bar at the bottom of the news with headlines of news and when breaking
news occurs it covers it also with the internet we have. Also it’s affordable
in the sense that you don’t need to place an expensive call using mobile phone
credit to reach someone on the other side of the continent but using Skype free
calls on the internet or watsapp text messages which are less expensive. Now
you don’t need to drive all the way to a news stand to get a newspaper which is
now two Ghana Cedis (2GHC). As if to add insult to injury, these new networks
and individuals are also now acting as a check on the traditional media,
questioning their accuracy, standards and focusing a new transparency. With the
common news on the internet, citizens begun to have a vast array information
available to them without having to search too strenuously or wait for schedule
broadcast or speeches.
But, it is important to
note that the activities of citizen journalists through the new/social media
platforms are rather making old/traditional media to loose grounds and
influence. This factor can be attributed to the somewhat “slow” process
traditional media houses go through to gather, edit, and publish information;
as compared to the use of blogs and websites by citizen journalists to quickly
publish news and information to reach out and interact with his/her audience. Also,
the key feature of interaction makes it easier for new media users to share, comment,
and reproduce news and information.
In response to the
changing trends of media production, traditional media houses are putting
initiatives in place to correct the problems posed by the new media. These
initiative include;
·
Corporate retraining of traditional
journalist staff for them to adapt to the use of the internet and the social
media.
·
Building online presence through the
creation of blogs and facebook accounts in order to still reach their audiences
who are inclined to the social media. For instance, myjoyonline news portal on
facebook is a mechanism put in place by Joy FM to reach their audiences who
enjoy going on the internet.
·
Creating room to accept views from their
readers, listeners and watchers where issues from daily news are put on the
internet for the audience to comment. Open forum on Metro TVs is a typical
example of how Metro TV get the views and comments of their viewers, TV3 also
has in place the viewers’ comment section.
·
Accepting news from the citizen journalists
instead of challenging them and trying to set them to the background. So CNN’s
iReport is a typical example of such, where they accept stories from the
ordinary citizen and treats it using journalism ethics. Actually it can be
accessed using an application on any smart phone, hence the citizen can report
at any time and any location.
The
old media in this case, if they want to avoid extinction by the advent of the
new media and technology in the name of the social media, should make sure they
stick to the strategies above and explore more strategies. They should not try
challenging the course of the new media but see it as an avenue for developing
the traditional media.
REFERENCES;
TODDAND.COM/2006/11/23/A_BRIEF_HISTORY_OF_TRADITIONAL_AND_SOCIAL_MEDIA/
