Within our age of information, digital natives are becoming more inclined to find their news sources on social media sites rather than traditional news sites.
Social media sites are being used to gain news
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were ranked among the top three prominent social media networks used to access the news. On a weekly basis, 37% of users gained information from Facebook, 17% from YouTube and 8% from Twitter. People use these outlets due to the personalization by the social media sites that cater to their topics of interest. Information overload within traditional news sties make it harder for individuals to navigate popular news sites such as New York Times, Huffington Post and the Wallstreet Journal. Unlike official news sources, sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide news that is more relevant to the users themselves. For example, when a friend finds an interesting news story, they share it on Facebook, which appears on your Timeline which, in theory, is based on an event that you would be more interested in compared to a random event presented on a news media site like CNN.
Tablets and Mobile Devices are common platforms to access news
When asked what type of formats participants used to access their media content, 17% stated that mobile is the best way of accessing news compared to 10% who state that the tablet is the best way to gain news coverage. According to the study, researchers have found that there is a growing dependence on smaller news apps due to the "limited screen real estate available on a smartphone." Top news sources with strong app propositions benefit from the 'smartphone effect' which prevents smaller news sources to be more involved in the smartphone app usage. Yahoo and MSN are suffering from this effect due to their inability to adapt to the media change.
Smartphones Encourage Fewer News Sources Usage
Increasingly, over the years, smartphones have raised concerns within the news industry as more people have resorted to digital methods of news access due to accessibility, efficiency and familiarity of common social media outlets. Since certain publications have difficulty adapting to the change of online formats, the idea of "the survival of the fittest" comes into play as news sources are facing a slow decline in publications.
No comments:
Post a Comment