New Media and Journalism

The mashable article about the 10 uses of social media was pretty interesting. I liked that it pointed out the ‘real world’ uses of things most people think of as toys. Like Skype for example. Lots of people use it to stay in touch and it is especially great for keeping in touch with international friends, its much much cheaper, but it can also be used by journalists for interviews, especially when the interview would otherwise require a lot of travel. This also translates more deeply into general business. Now there are many programs to initiate online business meetings. These make it convienient for many people around the globe to get together and get things done without actually having to be in the same room. This also makes it easier to record things such as interviews or meetings for later use if need be. I also liked that the article pointed out that journalists need to be wary of the content on their social media. I think this applies to everyone really, because even though we may not like it, employers are looking at our facebooks and twitters to get a peek into our character and everyone should make sure these things aren’t going to hurt their chances.

–Christina

Michael Jackson

This article definately made sense to me. I was at work when TMZ put out the news that he had died, and anyone and everyone at work with internet on their phones was trying to find out more details. It was definately putting social media to the test to find out the truth. The way this news spread was very interesting to me. I’ve found that recently I get more news from my friend’s facebook status then from an actual news media source. The article mentioned the amount of tweets the news recieved and how it was the most tweets since election time. This to me shows that we use our social media to share our opinions about things that are important to us, and relevant to us right in this moment. Some chastise new media for its “shallow” uses, such as the mass amounts of people weighing in on Michael Jackson’s death and surrounding circumstances, but I also feel like its definately a good way to get the word out in both personal news and more universal news.

–Christina

Getting Political with Social Media

The Technology Review article about Obama and social media had some interesting points. Social media definately had a huge part in this past election, and Obama’s use of social media in my opinion left his opponents in the dust as far as reaching out in as many possible ways. The shift in communication from more traditional means to new media use today has been compared to the introduction of television in the 60′s and its effect on the elections then. So in the 1960′s it was who has more television viewers, and today its who has more facebook friends. What will future elections hold in the way of new communication?

–Christina

Social Media is not a fad

Found this video on a blog , it has some pretty interesting social media statistics. What do you think?

 

-Emily