Reddit: How to Use
I have never used Reddit before in my social media news life, I spend weeks teaching myself how to use it and explore the many forums that this platform holds. I never considered this a news platform and as I continued to use it in the weeks I've taught myself. I definitely learned much more and I plan to use more enough because it is definitely different from the my typical social media sites that I use such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. It was almost finding a new world embedded in an old nostalgic layout.
Reddit is massive collection of forums which was found back in 2005 where people can share news, content, and comment on other people’s posts. Reddit is broken up to different subreddits which readers have the option to vote up or down on the post and users comments. The format of reddit is very 90s looking less modernize than some of the social media apps that are constantly updating such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Although, Reddit is different looking from most social media platforms. It very much brings in what Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram give which is memes, news, videos, posts, and photos. It’s almost in the same family tree of what social media users want when they are trying to find their entertainment or news.
News on Reddit is where most people find as a reliable source for all aspects of news, media, entertainment, sports, US and World Affairs. As I mentioned earlier, we look for those things in memes, video, and photos. Most of the news is user generated. There are news article posted on forums that give users the chance to read what topic they are searching.
It’s important to find news and you can located sometimes on the front page depending on how popular the news is or when it’s breaking news which means that it is treading everywhere whether it be on Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter. How it’s easy to navigate you simply search what you are looking for by using r/(topic). You can subscribe to topics and it will let you know how many when users are active. When you’re looking for news just simply search r/news and you will get many forms with what is going on in our national and international news. This gives users the chance to comment and up or down vote posts and comments as well.The more you vote up the popular the post or comment. You can share and save the posts as well.
The news content on Reddit our the majority of individuals that are targeted based on topics or niche groups and organizations. The subreddits and users are mainly online forums where individuals share articles and images relating to mainstream news and media. Just like most social media sites it uses audio, video, and external links to other articles, videos, and streams.
When you are looking for news it’s easy to search what topics are trending on Facebook or what hashtags are popular on Twitter. For Reddit, it depends on what forums are popular on the front page and you simply search on what you are looking for and there will be more than 1,000 threads for you to few depending on how popular the post is. Verification doesn’t seem very important because there are barely any famous people, organizations, and companies that use to post on the site since Reddit’s demographic is mostly male between the age group of 18–27 (Barajas, PBS Newshour.) Some posts seem to have sponsors or when celebrities use the Ask Me Anything column that is the closest thing to being verified.
I went around and asked people whether or not if they used Reddit. I wasn’t surprised at the results that I got since I myself am not a Reddit user and it just seems like Reddit falls on the short end of the social media news outlet. I interviewed three male social media users and one female. The most of the people I interviewed used most used Facebook and Twitter to receive their news. “I use Twitter because I feel like that’s the easiest way to access the news and most people use Twitter.” (Nina C. COD Student.) I think that statement is true because most of the people I know use Twitter because it’s easy to find the trending topics and follow the things that interest you.
As I continued my interviews, “I use Facebook, because i’m able to pick and choose where my news comes from, whether it’s a major news network or not.” (Manny L. COD Student.) As I talked to Manny, on more about his social media usage, he went on to explain that he finds it easier to find more credible sources by seeing who the author of the article is. Another Facebook user went on to say, “I use Facebook and I like reading Buzzfeed articles because it’s easy access my news. Buzzfeed is always on Facebook.” (Brian G. COD Student.) Buzzfeed is one of the most popular sources on Facebook as well as Reddit because of all of the hyperlinks that are put on the forms.
One interesting person I found who heavily used Reddit and most social media platforms said“I also use Twitter and on rare occasion Snapchat as well. These platforms are shaping themselves to be new outputs of new media and reliable news outlets.” (Abbas T. DePaul student.) His quote stuck with me because that’s exactly what is happening in the social media world.
For my final question, I decided to ask the question: Should Reddit be considered a news source? The answers I got were very interesting and gave me new outlook. Manny Lopez said “No, I believe that reddit is very satire news very opinionated and not factual. That’s not to say there isn’t factual information and it’s a matter of sourcing your facts that people don’t do” At first I agreed with Manny because when I was exploring Reddit it definitely seems unreliable and that there were no credited sources.
However when I asked, Abbas Tayebail, who uses frequently uses Reddit said “Reddit itself occasionally considered a source when leaders and celebrities participate in AMA’s (Ask me anything), other subreddits are considered fanatic groups and probably shouldn’t be directly used as a news source unless the post has a link to a reliable post.” I think this was the best answer I got because It would take me a long time to convince myself that Reddit would be considered a news source and this opened up new perspective for me.
In conclusion, when spending a week on a new social media platform that I don’t use. I learned a lot about Reddit. I feel confident in using Reddit and it doesn’t seem like it’s as boring as I thought it was. I’m just very glad I got to discover something new and I believe I will continue to use it as a part of my social media news platform.
