Usage of social media on gathering treatment and dissemination of news a survey of tricity based journalists

Abstract

The present study came out with very significant findings. The study suggested that social media has become the latest news outlet and is the future of journalism. The present study concluded that despite minor differences, all three functions include usage of social media to gather, treat and disseminate news in journalism are perceived to be highly important. The study concluded that the journalists, irrespective of the type of media they worked for, were generally accepting of the need to adapt journalistic practices to the social media environment. The study suggested that Facebook turned out to be most-preferred platform while Instagram was least preferred for various professional activities. The study concluded that an overwhelming majority of journalists agree to virality being suited as news value to social media platforms. Moreover, the 20 news values of timeliness, proximity, prominence, unusual nature, conflict, impact, entertainment, celebrity, exclusivity, bad news, surprise, audio-visuals, shareability, drama, follow-up, power elite, relevance, magnitude, good news, and news organisation s agenda wereperceived as important. It also concluded that viral news stories, photographs and videos have to be given precedence over other news, and virality of news stories, photographs and videos make the platform popular. The study suggested that journalists faced three types of challenges, including internal pressure, protection of news sources and threat of fake news. Journalists face overall a very little internal pressure while publishing on social media. However, the study indicated that journalists felt the highest pressure of management while gathering news, closely followed by pressure of advertiser interest when disseminating news. The lowest was pressure to follow guidelines by the editor in news dissemination followed by pressure to mind organizational rules while posting. newline