Journalism is an ever-changing field. The emergence of diverse technologies has greatly influenced the business of journalism, which involves taking account of news stories as they unfold, and relaying them to the public. Essentially, it entails the creation and presentation of information about cultural, social, political, and economic events; upon which people can form opinions on.
Ideally, journalism enables people to grasp what is going on in their world, locally or internationally, and to make certain decisions. Over the years, before the preeminence of digitalisation, print, audio, and visual media were utilised by newsrooms and established news brands to provide news stories to the public. But today, with the advent of the internet and social media, members of the public now consume and engage with news via a mix of different media.
That being said, nowadays, in an effort to serve the public well, newsrooms are cognizant of the kind of technology their audience use to keep up with trending news and updates. Thus, this era is characterized by massive transition into a more digitalised age; and therefore, online journalism tends to appeal to a lot of news consumers over traditional journalism, involving the use of media such as newspapers, televisions, and radios.
More than ever, there is a constant and rapid flow of information, as well as news, that millions of people can now access and consume online via social media, using their smart phones and computers. In other words, modern technology has enormously affected how people consume and engage with news stories. Even journalists can now capture, publish, and broadcast breaking news with their handheld devices.
In 2018, Jigsaw Research
carried out a survey across UK entitled "The Changing World of News," using the following locations: Belfast, Glasgow, Aberystwyth, Leeds, Peterborough, and London; and some of the findings from participants are as follow:
News stories; whether entertainment, political, local or international news, basically meet or perform personal, social, and societal roles.
Users' engagement with news, amongst other things, is influenced by their habits and routines; considering the context of the time of day, week, and the situations they are in at the point of news consumption.
However, aside from the speed and frequency at which newsrooms transmit news, there are inconsistencies in the news of most online-only brands. And this, therefore, has left skepticism in many users as to the veracity of news that fly on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., especially from less or non-established news sources.
Meanwhile, digitalisation has, somewhat, afforded users the ability to filter information and news sources based on their preferences, determined by their content expectations; in terms of the quality, authenticity, and style of news reports. That is, most people want to engage with news brands that provide factual and reliable news, even as their need for entertainment, or/ and to be informed are being met. Hence, people can now choose news sources or individual journalists to follow online, through social media.
Written By
Degreat Michael