Buzzfeed: the news of social media

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Charlotte MacKinnon

By CHARLOTTE MACKINNON

The young adults of today’s generation are the ones who have grown up with the Internet and have learned how to harness its unique powers – most notably in the forms of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Inevitably, the prominence of social media in every day life has impacted the way news is communicated and shared. While it seems to be a common trend for teenagers and other young people to ignore major online news hubs such as the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or The Washington Post among others, this young generation of Internet users are still getting exposure to the major stories of the moment.

The accessibility of such content stems from the new-age journalistic style that has established a major presence on social media – and no news company has made a bigger name for itself with the younger generation than BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and Kenneth Lerer, and the site’s content has since reached a global audience of more than 200 million. According to the website, it is “re-defining online advertising with its social, content-driven publishing technology” – and judging by its popularity and ubiquity across the world wide web, it is generally considered to be the face of future journalism.

When BuzzFeed first came onto my radar a year or two back, the site was best known for its “listicles” (list + articles), quizzes, clever GIFs (brief animated clips), and coverage of light-hearted material like celebrities and pop culture. I first discovered BuzzFeed through Facebook – I would constantly see my friends sharing links to funny or relatable articles with their friends, and due to the very public nature of Facebook’s stream, the same links would often be shared over and over again.

Users would acknowledge the articles on their news feed, and if feeling the same connection to it, be prompted to re-post it elsewhere. That’s how Buzzfeed has attracted so many viewers – it thrives off of traffic generated by third-party sites like Facebook and other social media outlets (Twitter), opening the floodgates to global exposure and allowing for its content to “go viral”.

What makes Buzzfeed such a successful new form of journalism is that the structure of the stories really work with social media. The pieces are often quirky, visually creative, and often take an angle that is relatable to younger generations. This obviously poses a major contrast to traditional style of news stories that you can find on the more serious news publications of today, like the ones I listed above. The types of stories that trend on Facebook aren’t wordy and academic; they’re short, fun pieces with headlines and pictures that immediately grab a user’s attention as they scroll down their newsfeed.

You might object, saying that a lot of the Buzzfeed content that goes viral isn’t really news – and yes, it’s true that a lot of it really is just silly speculation on trivial issues that are published for entertainment above anything. That may be how the site first took off, but it certainly isn’t how it’s operating today. Buzzfeed now covers all kinds of global news, whether it be on the economy, tech or politics. Scrolling down the site, one can find anything from “16 Magical Gifts All Unicorn Lovers Will Appreciate” to dispatches about the war in eastern Ukraine or terrorist attacks in Kenya.

Journalism is constantly evolving as new technologies reshape the way we communicate. I don’t know how the technological developments of the future will change the landscape of how news is shared in the coming decades, but the form of journalism that characterizes Buzzfeed is certainly redefining the kind of news we relied on in the past. In the world of print journalism, it is important to note how social media have become a platform for not just social contact between peers, but for the distribution of news as well. It will be interesting to see how this new style of journalism flourishes in the coming years and the ways in which it impacts the younger generations.

Social media change NYFW coverage

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Brittany Chandani

By BRITTANY CHANDANI

New York Fashion Week runs from Sept. 10 through 17, setting the style precedent for the upcoming season with international designer shows of Spring/Summer 2016 collections.

New York Fashion Week is one of the most coveted events to attend by young women and socialites alike. Celebrities like Jessica Alba, Steven Tyler, Julia Roberts and Kylie Jenner attend the star-studded event to watch famous models walk the runway, showcasing new trends from designers like Altuzarra, Alexander Wang, Diane Von Furstenburg and Carolina Herrera.

NYFW’s website streams the fashion shows in real time, beginning at 11 a.m., while also providing links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. The great variety of social media coverage has revolutionized the way Fashion Week is covered. Hashtags #NYFW, #MBFW or “hashtag-ing” the designer’s name, provides a categorical expanse of fashion week happenings. Snapchat, a video messaging application, now has its own story attributed to Fashion Week, allowing those who access the app to conveniently view coverage. Celebrities and fashion icons tweet in real time what they see onstage and backstage.

The viewer stress to provide real time content is changing the way journalists report on fashion week. As social media are the easiest and most efficient platform for this raw coverage, it is now the norm. The emphasis on backstage and behind the scenes coverage is made possible by social media, as it is easier to report quickly by snapping a photo on a phone and uploading it straight to Twitter, along with a caption and appropriate hashtags.

In past years, The Wall Street Journal did not cover Fashion Week in real time, but instead wrote and published stories prior to Fashion Week; after Fashion Week, editors would publish articles around the time the collections would reach stores.

The growing demand to view raw visual content such as backstage production, has coupled with increased methods of social media coverage. Journalists are now obliged to use many forms of social media to make Fashion Week more viewable by all.

Jailed over a Facebook post

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Diya Vasudevan

By DIYA VASUDEVAN

I recently wrote a post about how I dislike the idea of using Twitter because of the repercussions it could have on my image and how perspective employers might judge me from that. Overall, I didn’t believe the that the benefits of Twitter outweighed the negative repercussions.

For me being cautious about what I post is about prospective employment and nothing else. However, for some around the world being cautious is based of a whole other ball game. I read recently that a 19 year old in India was jailed over a Facebook post. As a Third Culture Kid from India, I never really experienced the dangers of being outspoken in a country such as India, simply because I really didn’t live there for a very long time.

How can a teenager be arrested over a Facebook post that didn’t threaten or allude to violence but merely expressed distaste? Well, this isn’t the first time this has a happened. In November 2012 two young Indian women were jailed overnight for a Facebook post they had made regarding a supposedly great (evidently corrupt) politician. They expressed their distaste regarding the fact that the city of Mumbai was treating him like a great leader that he really wasn’t.

I think that jailing someone based solely upon their opinions is ludicrous and, from what I have learned in the few months that I have lived in America, it would not be tolerated here. Having the freedom to say what I want to say as long as I’m not actually threatening anyone is something that I now see as gift. However, the freedom to say what I want when I want especially on forums such as Facebook should not be a privilege, the teenager in India deserves this right as much as I do.

Twitter’s negative effects for users

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Diya Vasudevan

By DIYA VASUDEVAN

I remember that, as a child, my mother would often chide me about the lack of filtration in the comments I made and the stories I told. There were no boundaries; I was a brutally honest child — and a loud one, too. Nothing that happened in the family stayed in the family. They often suffered the consequences of what they called my “verbal diarrhea.”

As I got older, though, I’d like to think I figured out what I should and should not say depending on the situation. However, there were times that I slipped up in a big way and was only lucky that spoken words weren’t lamented like the ones we let loose on the Internet. Media forums such as Facebook and Twitter have made it infinitely easier to express our opinions for the world to see and I learned the hard way that once it’s out there, there’s no taking it back.

So, when at 19 my Dad questioned why I didn’t have a Twitter account, I laughed and looked at him incredulously, “Do you really think Twitter is the best tool for someone who has to consciously remind herself of what she can and cannot share with the public?” At which he replied that he simply used Twitter for his work and perhaps I could use it in the same way.

The truth is that a social media forum such as Twitter terrifies me, the number of times celebrities get hauled up for their tweets or accidentally send out a nude picture for all of two seconds someone out there catches them and, like I said before, it’s words or nude images they can’t ever take back.

Twitter is essentially used to capture what you’re doing thinking or feeling in that moment in 140 characters or less. Often times when things are said in the moment they aren’t fully thought through, and these words can be read by future employers, college professors, colleagues and friends and can potentially hinder your future. We have to be careful about what we do and do not post on the Internet and Twitter does not help.

Covering the color of that mystery dress

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Hanya ALKhamis

By HANYA ALKHAMIS

It was on a Thursday night when everyone was on their phone and staring at a dress, which was either black and blue or white and gold, depending on the viewer.

Pathetic, it was just pathetic to view how people made a big deal over a worthless dress that had no significance what so ever. It was on all Web news sites. And it got considerable mainstream news media attention. Even the national TV networks gave it attention.

Everyone was all over the place about it and yet, if it were to be about the wars and political disputes happening in Arab world, no one would have cared.

The social media’s main topic on Thursday night and all of Friday was the dress and the color perceived by each and every person.

It is insane and foolish how everyone was on his or her phone Thursday night talking about this mysterious dress that was both black and blue or white and gold. Everyone spent an hour or two or even the whole day just to figure out the mystery and Googling the reason why they saw what they had seen.

The image contained a striped dress, a dress that was seen to be white and gold in my perspective. The controversy was all over how one perceives the dress color differently than another. Many argued it was white with gold stripes or blue with black stripes.

The mystery dress was a sight test to test how people view colors differently. The dress is actually known to be white and gold, but there is an explanation why some viewers, viewed the dress to being black and blue.

As some people go through hard negative events in their life they start to see colors a different way. This proves why many people believed that the dress was black and blue rather than white and gold.

Whatever color you saw depended on the emotion you were feeling and the type of mood you were in, and that is the primary reason why people argued about the actual color of this mystery dress.