Social Media: Scrolling towards the future of news consumption and distribution
Remember the time you would flip through the newspaper and come across an interesting article? Or when you would tune in to the six o’clock news and find out what’s happening around the world and in your community? Today, news consumption is very different. Newspapers are on the verge of extinction and more people are cutting the cord when it comes to cable. The reality is that not everyone has the time to wait for the evening news or the distribution of a newspaper in the morning. Instead, newsreaders and news consumers are getting their information online, and more frequently, through social media sites.
In the digital age where nearly everyone has a smart phone and access to the Internet, news can now be consumed from virtually anywhere and on the go. Not to mention users can get access to the latest developments as they happen right at their fingertips. I believe this speaks to two things; the world of immediacy we live in, where the audience wants to know and see what’s going on and have the information easily accessible to them and secondly, the change in viewership habits, primarily due to an emerging, younger audience. We are currently seeing a shift in the landscape of traditional news mediums; more people are turning to social media sites as their main source of news.
In fact, according to the 2016 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 62% of Americans get their news from social media sites. The most popular one being Facebook, with 66% of Americans getting their news from the social networking site, followed by Twitter (59%). Here in Canada, it’s a very similar picture. Based on the research, we can conclude that 58% of Canadians get their news from Facebook, followed by YouTube (24%) and Twitter (19%). The study also noticed that most of these news consumers that use social media sites and platforms are below the age of 35.
There’s no denying it; the way in which we consume our news is changing, especially here in North America. The traditional mediums are no longer sustainable and newsrooms must open up to the idea of social media sites becoming legitimate news mediums. Since most people get their news on their smartphones to begin with, news organizations will have to start thinking of social media sites such as Facebook, as their primary platform to host content as opposed to using it as a complimentary outlet to drive traffic back to their websites. I think it’s time we start including social media sites as part of the conversation when it comes to news mediums.
