Social Media as News
Source 1: Excerpt from “It’s Official: Most of Us Now Get Our News from Social Media
byLance Ulanoff, May 26, 2016
1 The scale is tipping from traditional media to social media as a source for news. That’s the conclusion reached ina new studypublished on Thursday by Pew Research Center.
2 Pew surveyed over 4,600 people who told them that they’re increasingly using their favorite social media platforms — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and even Snapchat — as their go-to sources for news. According to the study,News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016, 62% of all Americans now get news from social media.
3 Proportionally, Facebook, which has 222 million monthly active users across the U.S. and Canada (1.6 billion worldwide), is the No. 1 go-to source for news among social media sites. According to the study, 66% of Facebook’s U.S. audience gets their news from the site. It’s an interesting and timely stat, considering Facebook’s recentTrending Topics controversy.
4 The social network came under fire recently when former Trends contractors alleged that they might have been filtering out some right-leaning news sources. Facebook denied the accusations, but ultimately changed how it filters Trending Topics.
Trending
5 This is actually the second time Pew has conducted this study. The first was in 2013, and it noted growth in social platforms as news sources across virtually all the surveyed platforms.
6 Facebook, notably, saw the biggest jump (47% versus 66%).
7Reddit actually boasts the largest percentage of users who say they turn to it for news (70%), but its user base is much, much smaller than Facebook’s.
8 More than half of Twitter’s users say they turn to the micro-blogging platform for news, but the numbers didn’t change much in the last three years (59% versus 52% in 2013), which may make sense since Twitter’s user growth hasall but stalled.
Who reads the news
9 17% of Snapchatters report getting news from the ephemeral platform
10 The study also reveals who is getting their news from these platforms. As you might expect, LinkedIn, which 19% of its users tap for news, has the largest majority of college educated users (65%, outpacing the U.S. average of 28%), while YouTubers have the fewest college degrees. Of the platforms surveyed, Facebook and Instagram are the most heavily female, 57% and 65%, respectively. Instagram, by the way, has, by far, the youngest audience, with 58% between 18 and 29.
11 Those surveyed also reported getting news from Yahoo’s Tumblr, Vine(!) and Snapchat, which didn’t even make it onto the 2013 survey. Now 17% of Snapchatters report getting news from the ephemeral platform, which should be music to the ears of all the media companies (includingMashable) who are currently filling theSnapchat Discoverdigital magazine platform.
Media upside
12 It isn’t all bad news for traditional media. The Pew Study notes that the very same people who are either accidentally finding news on these platforms or purposefully turning to them each day for news, also pay attention to traditional media. 39% of Facebook users who go to the platform for news still watch the local news. 15% of them actually still read newspapers. Contrast that with the 8% of Twitter's news users who still consume content from print.
13 Even so, it’s clear the trend of people getting news from social media will continue and expand.
Source 2: From “Media's Positive & Negative Influence on Teenagers”
by K. Nola Mokeyane
14 Media is a vast form of communication that permeates nearly every aspect of modern culture. Teenagers are exposed to all sorts of media outlets, from television, movies and advertising to social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Media isn't inherently positive or negative; however, teens should have a healthy balance between exposure to media and other, intellectually and physically stimulating activities, says the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
Image and Beauty Standards
15It's no secret that media has had an increasingly negative impact on the way teenage girls measure their personal image and beauty standards. The sizes of supermodels and actresses often influence teenage girls -- who are actively seeking to find an identity -- to believe they have to be thin to exemplify beauty. Magazine advertisements encourage teenage girls to think their hair needs to be long or short, red, blond or brunette -- whatever the flavor of the month -- in order to be considered beautiful. In order to minimize the effect of these messages, Boise State University psychology professor, Mary Pritchard, writing for "The Huffington Post," praises parents who limit their teens' exposure to various media outlets. Teens should be taught to value their own definitions of beauty above all else.
Glorifying Negative Behaviors
16 Movies and television programs often show characters using drugs and alcohol and engaging in violent behaviors. At a developmental stage when teens seek greater freedom and independence, the glorification of drugs, alcohol, risky sexual and violent behaviors in the media make it challenging for teens to make responsible behavioral choices. Still, media cannot solely be blamed for teens' consumption of drugs and alcohol, or involvement in sexual activities; ultimately it's up to parents to teach their teens about the negative consequences associated with risky behaviors, and the false images often perpetuated in the media for financial gain. Palo Alto Medical Foundation suggests that teens learn to use their critical thinking skills by distinguishing fantasy from reality, and analyzing the agendas and target audiences of various advertisements.
Cultural and Political Awareness
17 The Raising Children Network says that teens can benefit from media exposure by developing cultural and political awareness. Television, films, magazines and social media sites expose teens -- who may otherwise be limited to interactions with people from their own cultural and ethnic backgrounds -- to an array of different people. While family members and peers may perpetuate stereotypes of different cultural groups, media outlets can offer a diverse display of cultural or ethnic groups -- such as Asian, Latino and Black Americans -- that encourage teens to think critically and question cultural stereotypes. News outlets, such as CNN, Fox News and Al-Jazeera English, provide teens with an opportunity to develop a political stance. Exposure to news and information about events occurring around the world also allow teens to participate in charitable acts or consider other ways to engage in benevolent deeds.
Social Skills Development
18 Teens can learn to enhance social interactions with their peers through involvement in social media, says the Raising Children Network. Quite often, friendships on social media sites are merely offline extensions of existing, face-to-face relationships. Social media also allows teens to cultivate new friendships, which brings them access to wider networks and provides even greater learning and social opportunities. Other benefits for teens engaged in social media include increased social confidence, more social support and heightened media literacy. Social media diversifies teens' social skills, which will help them navigate through a technologically astute society.
Source 3: Excerpt from “Millennials push aside traditional media for the small screen”
19 Welcome to the age of the Internet celebrity. Videos produced by users and shared online are
becoming more and more popular, at least with young people.
20 Teens flock to conventions such as VidCon, an annual gathering of online video enthusiasts. They subscribe in mass numbers to YouTube channels and Vine accounts. Many teens even start their own video blogs.
21 Meanwhile, adults are mainly sticking to traditional media, like films and television. Defy Media, a digital content company geared toward teens, wanted to find out why Internet videos are so popular with young people.
It's The Content
22 In its third annual report, released Tuesday, Defy found that 62 percent of 13-to-24-year-olds watch videos online because digital content makes them feel good about themselves.
23 Andy Tu is executive vice president of marketing at Defy Media. Based on Defy's study, Tu said that young viewers relate to the makers of online videos. "There's so much evidence that the big reason digital wins isn’t just because of technology. It’s because the content that’s on these platforms is inherently more relatable,” he said.
24 To gather data for the new report, Defy surveyed roughly 1,350 people nationwide, ages 13 to 24, and interviewed 36 people. About 18 of those interviews were in-person in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Minneapolis, and the rest were conducted online.
TV Gets Pushed Aside
25Defy's research suggested that, on average, teens watch 11.3 hours of free online video and 10.8 hours of subscription online video weekly. That is nearly twice the time teens spend watching free online TV shows from broadcast and cable networks (6.4 hours) or for regularly scheduled TV (8.3 hours). In other words, teens tend to spend more time watching YouTube videos, and other online content, than they spend watching TV.
26 Roughly 69 percent of those surveyed said that online videos include content they want to watch. Sixty-seven percent said they can relate to online content. By comparison, only 56 percent said that TV delivers content they want to watch, and only 41 percent said traditional media has content to which they can relate.
27 For example, one person Defy interviewed said that she loved singer Nicki Minaj, but that she found it difficult to form a connection with her.
28 According to Tu, the teenager said: “Nicki Minaj is all about making money and I can’t make money so I can’t relate to her.”
YouTubers As Role Models?
29Tu argued young people's preference for online videos also has to do with how online content is made. “TV is coming from development execs then creators, then producers, and then talent performs that content,” he noted. “YouTube has a deeper connection because the content comes from the creator.” Viewers, in other words, may find it easier to relate to someone who is making videos from their bedroom than to a professional production team making a TV show.
30 Many of the teens who were interviewed also said that online video creators were more committed than traditional stars.
31 “They don’t miss a single day and they are dedicated to the craft,” Tu said. “Their content is consistent so a lot of the people we interviewed said they could count on them.”
32 Some of the teens who were surveyed consider YouTubers to be their role models. An estimated 32 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds and 26 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds said that they were more likely to look up to a YouTube personality than to a traditional celebrity. Of 18-to-24-year-olds, 52 percent said they feel closer to their favorite YouTubers than they feel to traditional celebrities.
33 When asked if they could be a YouTube star, more than half of those surveyed said yes. However, when asked if they could be a TV or movie star, only about 40 percent said yes.
Get Your Selfies Here!
34 The study also found that YouTube personalities can influence viewers more than traditional stars when it comes to promoting brands. An estimated 63 percent of all respondents said they would try a product or brand recommended by a YouTube personality. Just 48 percent reported that they would try a product or brand recommended by a TV and movie star. These findings indicate that teens may trust online video creators more than traditional celebrities.
35 Online videos seem to be getting more and more popular. Tu said he was walking around the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles last weekend and spotted an event that featured Vine and YouTube stars.
36 “There were hordes of people waiting everywhere to get selfies with all this talent,”
he said. Some onlookers were unimpressed, however. “Everyone at the Grove
over the age of 30 was looking at each other like ‘What is going on around here?’"