The new social media journalism

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Daniela Longo

By DANIELA LONGO

Social media have become so powerful that it seems information travels faster than light.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and many other major networking platforms have made their users active journalists.

Nowadays, people comment and publish pictures of events as they are happening worldwide and sometimes this helps news organizations to gather information and even law enforcement organizations to solve crimes.

A real example of the roll of the “new social media journalists” was the explosions during the Marathon in Boston last April. In the efforts to capture the suspects, people were asked to send their pictures and videos of the finish line area where the two bombs exploded in order to see if the suspect could be identified.

Along with law enforcement and the pictures and videos sent, the suspect was successfully identified.

Not only was the role of the “new social media journalists” helpful to find the suspects, but it also helped news organizations to gather their information during that hectic afternoon and evening.

In moments of panic, when different bombs exploded killing and injuring several individuals at a major event like the Boston Marathon or the more recent Washington, D.C. Navy Yard mass shooting, it gets really difficult for news media to get as close as desired to report what is happening. Also it’s almost impossible to gather accurate information when nobody knows what is happening.

In this case, journalists rely on the pictures and information that only the quickness of social media from persons and witnesses already at the scene can provide.

Even though social media should be a place to begin the news gathering of any story, in moments when time is gold, its acceptable to use it in the most accurate way to provide the audiences the right information as fast as possible.

Since social media offers public information, journalists use it more and more.

In traditional journalism, social media wouldn’t have had a role because it’s really hard to confirm the information. However, the fast, modern lifestyle that people have also requires instant information that social media offers, despite its flaws.

Social media affect all kinds of public figures and events. Now news organizations cite tweets from Twitter, video from YouTube, and posts on Facebook. Media even use pictures that might be published on these networks. Now a tweet is sufficient evidence to start a controversy.

Because social media is really powerful, it must be use really carefully. All the information found in this medium must be confirmed and used accurately without disregarding the truth.

Violence against journalists in Mexico

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Melissa Mallin

By MELISSA MALLIN

Reporting can be a dangerous job.

Ask any reporter who has reported from Mexico recently and they will tell you the same thing.

Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for reporters. Last year, there were at least 172 confirmed attacks on the media in Mexico. Press Freedom Group Article 19 claims that public officials are responsible for more than half of the attacks. Most, if not all of the attacks, have involved journalists reporting on the Mexican drug cartel.

These attacks have involved death threats to journalists, kidnappings, and even deaths.

Even though Mexico has recently passed a law making it a federal crime to attack reporters, violence often goes unpunished and murders are often not investigated. Now, there are very few crime reporters in Mexico and those who do choose to report crimes are forced to use pseudonyms or use social media.

This is a prime example of how corrupt government can create a chilling effect for reporters. Nobody wants to report from Mexico because nobody wants to get killed for doing their job. Many reporters who received death threats didn’t take them seriously and then wound up dead. When almost every reporter shows up dead or goes missing, That’s enough to send the rest of the reporters out of the country.

As much as I would like to report on the Mexican drug cartels and be the one to uncover the truth, I don’t think I would be willing to lose my life over it. That goes back to how much a reporter is willing to sacrifice in order to tell a story. Clearly, when choosing to cover a story that ultimately results in death, you become a lot less likely to cover that story.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/05/2012524111528391905.html

Hashtags: Not just source of comic relief

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Marissa Young

By MARISSA YOUNG

Multiple people have shared the following video on my Facebook news feed: http://gizmodo.com/justin-timberlake-show-us-how-dumb-we-sound-when-we-use-1382465357. In it, entertainers Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake verbally imitate the way some people haphazardly use hashtags on social media.

HOW ANNOYING. That’s directed to my few Facebook friends who post pictures (every minute, too) with captions in which *every* one of 30 words #has #its #own #individual #hashtag. I’m not sure if they’re doing this to maximize the number of likes their photos will get, if they genuinely think people are searching for pronouns like “I” or phrases like “realwomenlikeracecars,” or if they’ve gone altogether crazy.

People like that are taking hashtags too far. They are giving hashtags a bad rap.

I wouldn’t be so quick to cast the hashtag aside, though. It does have its merits. The idea behind hashtags is that social media users can search for them or click through to them in order to find related material containing the same hashtag.

This can be useful if one day you really feel like seeing posts about a certain topic, such as #cute pictures of #dogs. This isn’t their only function: hashtags can be useful on a deeper level, too. When news is breaking, you can click on a trending topic and view all posts with the same tag, which can help you piece together information. The posts will be from a variety of sources that can include both professional news sources and citizen journalists. This allows you to get multiple perspectives and you can judge for yourself whether or not the posts are reliable or enlightening.

Hashtags can also benefit journalists or companies by popularizing stories or products. This often happens with TV shows, which may present viewers with a hashtag suggestion on the bottom of their screens. When many people use the same hashtag at the same time, the hashtag can appear under “Trends” on Twitter.

This can start conversations with people who have used the same hashtags and therefore have similar interests, like watching the same show. It may spark the curiosity of other Twitter users, who might be interested in shows or products they see on the website and decide to find out more about them. If a journalist is lucky or is good at promoting, his or her story can become a trending topic as well.

Trending topics are a good way to find out what is going on in general. Once you get the gist of a piece of news, you can choose to pursue the rest of the story.

Even though I didn’t click on a hashtag, I came across the above video via another form of trending, as it has gone viral on social media. This just reinforces the utility of hashtags, regardless of how easy they might be to satirize.

Grand Theft Auto is a media rockstar

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Adam Hendel

By ADAM HENDEL

Journalists, and some social media users fear the impact of the new Grand Theft Auto V’s video gaming experience upon other people, particularly the youth. However, talk about the violence, vulgarity and mature content does not scare the consumers away, it seems to promote interest.

Grand Theft Auto V was released Sept. 17 and the game has generated more sales than any game in history and with such controversial subject matter, it’s no wonder why this game is all over social media. The game raked in a shocking $800 million its first day according to Take Two Interactive, who is the primary developer and publisher of Rockstar Games.

With 200,000 Facebook users chatting about the game at one time, it is apparent that social media is to credit for putting the game in the spotlight. Even with the knocking of the game, all attention becomes beneficial for the sales of the game.

TMZ’s Facebook page posted the article to Facebook pertaining to a boycott of the game. However, the dispute is not related to the gang promotion or gun violence, it is a protest by animal activists saying Rockstar Games is “capitalizing off animal torture.”

Jack Carone, from In Defense of Animals said, “the makers of this game have traded decency for money” and added “Encouraging the darkest impulses of young people is not an admirable pursuit.”

Perhaps the game is not suited for children, but the aspect of animal violence in the game is not the promotion of our youth’s “darkest impulses.” Practically all responses to the boycott post were bashing the animal activists for being overly sensitive.

Some responses just state how it is simply a video game, but the best argument is from fans like Paul Nweke who questioned, “it’s okay to kill human beings in a video game, but it’s not with animals?” In terms of fighting a multi billion-dollar project, picking this battle will not stop many from buying the game.

Fans feel strongly about the game and all the disputes about it only raise more interest for those who have not experienced the game yet. By way of social media, the game is promoting itself by giving the people such interesting topics to debate. It is a juicy subject, which is what our social media world thrives upon.

Blackberry struggles to keep up

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Axel Turcios

By AXEL TURCIOS

Is anybody buying Blackberries anymore? Are there any new models coming out soon? Why is it is hard to see them around?

Well, I believe that those are questions that everybody wants to find the right answer. However, in reality it is true that the phone maker is going through a hard moment in its history.

“It’s just too good to only keep it to us,” Thorsten Heins, Blackberry CEO, said of its once famous messenger service BBM.

The mobile company’s decision to release its messenger app to other mobile platforms looks to many like a strategy to save the company from an expected bankruptcy. The service features BBM Chat for instant messaging with other users. Additionally, each user has a unique PIN, so you don’t have to give out your phone number to use the service mostly a privacy feature.

I think this should be something positive for the phone maker that seems to be struggling to bring revenue to its stock share.

The Canadian company that once was at the top of the list of the most-sold mobile devices in the United States, announced this week that they would eliminate of 4,500 positions. In other words, that means 40 percent of its current work force.

In fact, things like these seem to predict the end of the Blackberry era.

Many experts believe that the company’s biggest loss comes from phones that were not sold because of competition from other smartphones, such as the iPhone, in the last couple of years.

A little bit more than four years ago, Blackberry controlled 51 percent of the mobile global market. Today it stands at three percent.

When the iPhone came out, cell phone history changed. Apple released a new device that revolutionized the way many people talk to each other. It created a touch screen smartphone that was capable of running a variety of apps.

Alongside the iPhone came the Android operating system that rapidly became iPhone’s biggest competition.

Are Blackberry’s final hours are here? Will the company be able to rise from this fall? Well, we don’t know those answers yet but if it does fall or rise, it’ll certainly be a top story.

Media fuel craze over new iPhones

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Alexandra Silver

By ALEXANDRA SILVER

The IPhone 5s came out this past week, but that is old news to most college students around the United States and the world.

The craze for Apple technology is still going strong as people stand in lines for hours to get their hands on the newest IPhone, IPad and MacBook.

It is hard to believe that a major headline this week was titled “Gold IPhone 5s won’t ship until October.” This begs the question; is this truly newsworthy? Or have we gone overboard with our obsession of material objects.

That wasn’t the only surprising article floating around the Internet about IPhones. Other headlines and articles read ‘Can IPhone addiction wreck your marriage?’ and ‘Psychologists Concerned about IPhone Obsession.’

The new IPhone 5s is said to have an application that disables the possibility of anyone other than the owner of said phone to unlock the lock screen. This new addition may discourage others who may try to steal these IPhones and sell them, as it is said to be nearly impossible to hack into these new devices.

Although, in a matter of minutes, multiple articles and videos surfaced online with tutorials that taught the art of hacking into this new IPhone 5s making the application useless.

Students have already taken to Twitter and Facebook with information about the new IPhone along with iOS7, which is newest operating system for Apple cell phone and tablet products. Many complain about the new look, despite waiting long hours on line and spending a decent about of money.

In only 10 minutes, the shipping date for this new gadget went from two business days; to 10 and this back order issue will continue for quite some time as it has in the past.

With this new information floating around the media, we have to consider that all new technologies are usually flawed and the small differences such as an anti-hacking application or a gold colored IPhone are not necessarily worth the anticipation and money.

Genuine human interaction is becoming a thing of the past due to the obsession with social media and networking that these phones allow one to have at all times. Whether it is through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or simply texting, the need to be connected at all times is proving to be a serious issue.

Crossing the line when posting

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Shai Fox Savariau

By SHAI FOX SAVARIAU

The National Rifle Association is attempting to get a journalism professor dismissed for tweeting that the navy yard shooting was their fault.

David Guth, a professor at the University of Kansas, tweeted “#NavyYardShooting The blood is on the hands of the NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.”

David Guth’s tweets after the Navy Yard shooting (Screen capture by Shai Fox Savariau).

Kansas State Rifle Association’s President Patricia Stoneking said that Guth should not be allowed to teach.

Stoneking said “The KSRA will do everything possible to see to the removal of this man. He should be fired immediately. His statements are outrageous,”

“Any person with such a vile and contemptuous attitude who has influence over our children as a professor does should be immediately fired.”

Officials at the University said that Guth’s tweets do not reflect the views of the university.

In later blog posts, Guth wrote that he did not regret writing these things and that he is prepared to be criticized by others.

I don’t fully agree with how Guth expressed his feelings via Twitter. I am a strong advocate of freedom of speech, but speaking out about how the NRA’s sons and daughters should be hurt next time there is a mass shooting is not the way to get your point across.

As a journalism professor, I believe Guth does have a duty of showing that he can express his opinion in a way that’s not attacking another group of people. Speaking out and inciting violence on the Internet, which is not a private place, is not the civil way of expressing yourself.

I think that as journalists, we have to carry ourselves in a certain way. A big thing for a journalist is to report news without including bias. Yes, Guth’s tweets and other blog posts were just him expressing himself about the navy yard shooting. But, he could have written his distaste for the NRA in a way that wasn’t so gruesome, in my opinion. Even outside of work, Guth has that duty to carry himself with poise towards any breaking news situation. Even on the Internet.

Guth is also a professor at a university. Being that I am a college student myself in a journalism program, I can relate to this situation. I would not appreciate knowing that a professor of mine was writing such harsh things on the Internet.

Teachers of any kind need to be very careful of what they post on any type of social media. It can be seen by anyone and since teachers are responsible for the shaping of younger minds, it is important that they don’t encourage these types of violent responses from their students, especially journalism students.

Guth’s students will be on a job hunt very soon and if they are exhibiting the type of behavior that he showed on Twitter, then it may be a challenge for them to find a position.

Social media can be a very powerful tool but it must be used in a way that won’t offend others.

Original article can be found here: http://www.kctv5.com/story/23480333/ku-journalism-professor-underfire-for-nra-related-tweets-after-navy-shootings.

Where modern journalism stands …

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Valeria Viera

By VALERIA VIERA

Media is the new term we now use instead of press, said media critic Jay Rosen in his article “An Introduction,” explaining that the term is more of a “modern, abstract, inclusive, elastic, and of course more commercial” term.

Through this article Prof. Rosen tries to persuade readers that was he’s saying is true. He says “we need to keep the press from being absorbed into The Media.” This caught my attention because technology is definitely taking over and each day that goes by the Internet is more and more part of our lives.

The news we once had to sit and watch, or read in newspapers, are now available instantly in our computers, smartphones, or other portable devices.

This article, as a whole, is a way of saying we shouldn’t make that mistake of leaving press behind, since historically it’s what started it all, and for him the best “backward glancing term.”

Rosen defines it at the end as “Ghost of democracy in the media machine” and I believe it is the perfect way of expressing that press must not be forgotten and must always have a presence in this new modern journalism world we’ve seen grow and develop to these days.

The article can actually present to the world a certain assessment of where journalism stands now and where it’s headed. Nowadays, the public that was once on the other side to only receive information, now participates actively. It has become a two-way thing, where opinions, comments, even information from citizens, are now part of it all.

“Armed with easy-to-use Web publishing tools, always-on connections and increasingly powerful mobile devices, the online audience has the means to become an active participant in the creation and dissemination of news and information.” In other words, Rosen explains, journalism of today is “threatened by not just new technology and competitors but, potentially, by the audience it serves.”

This conversion in journalism has been occurring during the last few years and is all about telling stories in new and different ways, like for example using Twitter or Facebook, as well as blogs and other social media.

Since this is happening so fast around the world, sometimes we professional journalists have to be careful which way is the correct and best way to present information to the public, while always making sure it is accurate, true and reliable.

Who are today’s reporters? All of us

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Rebecca Fernandez

By REBECCA FERNANDEZ

Over the last decade, technology, especially cell phones, has become one of the most important devices in our day-to-day lives. During the last couple of years, however, technology has not only been one of our favorite devices for entertainment, but even for news reporting and the information it gives us.

Reporting? You ask.

Yes, even reporting. Every thing we do every day we publish onto the Internet. Whether it is what we wore to work today, what we did for our best friend’s birthday, or what we think about the latest iPhone update.

Either way, we have all become reporters.

One of these reporters living in South Miami, just blocks from the UM campus, reported something on his Facebook page that will change his life forever.

A Miami man fatally shot his wife and then posted a picture of her body on Facebook.

“I’m going to prison or death sentence for killing my wife love you guys, miss you guys take care Facebook people you will see me in the news,” Derek Medina, 31, wrote on his Facebook site just moments before adding the gruesome image.

The picture showed his 26-year-old wife, Jennifer Alfonso, slumped on the kitchen floor of the townhouse they shared.

She had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

According to police reports, he claimed that before he killed her, they were having an argument. During the course of the argument, Alfonso threatened him with a knife, but he was able to disarm her. But when she began punching him again Medina said he shot her.

After the shooting, Medina posted the photo of his wife on his Facebook page with the caption saying “RIP Jennifer Alfonso.”

The photo shows Alonso on the floor, on her back with her legs bent backward and blood on her left arm and cheek.

Shortly after posting the picture he wrote,

“My wife punching me and I not going to stand anymore with the abuse, so I did what I did. I hope u understand me.”

Without calling 911, Medina changed his clothes and went to see his family to whom he confessed the crime, before turning himself into the police.

He has been charged with first-degree murder.

It is things like this that clearly show how much our world has changed over the years. This was not a story that news reporters found. This was not a story that the police formed. This is a story that the man who killed his wife wrote. He was the reporter.