When speaking about my own media consumption, I never really read or watched the news. The only times I would ever read the news would be when something popped up on Facebook when scrolling through my news feed. I didn’t really look for news, it rather just came to me. However, in recent years, I have found myself wanting to know more about the world we live in. Over the summer we were set a task in which we had to find out some media stories that were happening in the world, and download the BBC news app. This gave me the opportunity to look at how I get my information about news that is transpiring locally, nationally and worldwide. If I read a headline on Facebook and though it was interesting and was intrigued to read more, I would then read further on the matter. But because Facebook has many links, where some may be biased or lying, I would look either on Google for some news stories or go on my BBC news app to see if they have covered it, which will then tell me if it’s not only true, but also to get a more in depth understanding of the particular news article. However, i don't really find that much news from Facebook, and more likely if watching the news or reading articles on the BBC news app.
The way I would get my news from would either be the BBC News app, watching TV or mainly through social media. Besides social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, the only news story access I choose to have is with applications would be the BBC news app which I do feel is a trustworthy source and that it brings me the most important updates from around the world. This is the third most-used source out of all news providers which has "24% of the news market" which is said in a polling conducted for Ofcom’s annual news consumption report. Also my family all tend to watch BBC news when it comes to choosing a source of news. The BBC is an unbiased network as it is paid for by people’s taxes, meaning they have to appeal to all audiences. The BBC website remains the most popular online destination, used by 52% of people who go online. However, The BBC is focused more on entertainment rather than news yet they still attract one out of every 28 people around the world. The main reason that I use this app is because of its accessibility and it is easy of use, I try and check the app at least once a day and have alerts on which give me the most important breaking news that is happening in the world. I think having alerts on was a good idea for me because I like to be updated and being able to know as soon as possible when something has happened. The BBC news app has a wide variety of tabs to choose from if you’re wanting to search for news fast, e.g. ‘Top Stories’, ‘Most Read’ and ‘Most Watched’ etc. Personally, I think the BBC news app is a perfect app to have on everyone’s phone as you are able to adapt the app and create your own tab which is called ‘My News’ which enables you to tailor the app to your own interests. When I first downloaded the app I didn’t take much notice in this feature, but as I got more and more interested within reading news, I chose a few categories that personally, I would like to read about. Some of these topics that I have put on my app would include ‘World’, ‘Brexit’, ‘Entertainment and Arts’ etc.
The way that I accessed the news I was reading would be through either my phone, computer or by watching TV. An example of a news story that took my attention over the summer would be the recent uprising of Marina Joyce. I learnt about this when scrolling through twitter and seeing the tag #SaveMarinaJoyce spread amongst many different people, even some famous youtubers such as ‘Callux’ were taken aback by this and wrote to Marina, which then gained more popularity due to his fan base concerned on her safety. When Marina then tried to arrange a 6:30am meet up with her fans, some speculated she was involved in a trap set by Isis. Fans began talking about how she appeared frightened and distressed. More than 60 people tweeted that it had caused them to have an anxiety or panic attack. I think that that the fans of Marina Joyce created this tag due to their high concern of Marina’s safety. This just shows how the media can have an effect upon people. The mood was one of hysteria for fans of Marina Joyce. This is therefore an example of ‘we media’ as it shows how the audience are making the news by creating their own hashtag and then it going viral around the world, we can see this when the hashtag #SaveMarinaJoyce became the number one trending topic worldwide. Another example of a news story that I followed just before summer would be the shooting at a nightclub in the city of Fort Myers in Florida. Two people were killed and 16 injured in the shooting and was big across all news. The way that I found out about this attack was also again, through twitter, however on this one, I decided to take matters further and look on my BBC news app, which also alerted me of the attack and gave us updates on what was happening at the given moment. The attack happened at Club Blu, which was hosting a party for teenagers. The club hosted a swimsuit party on Sunday night where no ID was required, according to a flyer. Club Blu said the shooting happened as the party ended and parents arrived to pick up their children.
When researching, I noted the ways in which people got their news with the added fact of how old they are. I found that a lot of teenagers i.e. 17 to 18 year olds, got their news in the same way as I did, through social media. However, when asking people older than me how they got theirs from, they said newspapers etc. This shows the different audience behaviour on how we get our media as the elderly stick to the more traditional/ old fashioned way, however the younger generation stick to what’s current, which is social media. When looking at the Ofcom report, it states that “Around 44% of people said they got their main sources of news from radio (with the BBC having a 75% share of this) and newspapers, however, again there is a big difference in age groups and a slight difference in gender.” It says that “women more likely to get their news from TV compared to men; men more likely to listen the radio or use an app than women” This shows the difference in age and also gender differences. In lesson, we also conducted a questionnaire in which we went round the class and found out about peoples news consumption. I could see a big difference in age as for example a 17 year old had down in their categories on the BBC news app, entertainment, news and music, comparing that with a 41 year old, the categories consisted of education, family, schools, and Brexit. This therefore shows the difference in what different people choose to put in their categories and what they want to be kept updated on. I also noticed that the older you were, the more you read the news. However, one similarity was that most people, from all age ranges seem to trust the BBC and Channel 4 the most when bringing the news. I think that we increasingly are the curators of our media as I believe that we are creating our own news, the news we want to listen to. The way we are doing this would be through being able to make our own categories on what our preferences are and are reading what we want to read. This would also be an example of media 3.0 as we are able to create our own media.
I agree with what you are saying, however, do you think social media is made a positive change on the way people view the news, or ruined it?
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of the points you're making in your post, I find that I also look further into a headline on places such as Google to make sure what I am reading is valid. I also agree with the results that you found out about younger people preferring to use social media compared to the older generation which usually use more "traditional" ways such as newspapers and TV news channels.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the ease of access to news, is a good thing or does it create a negative effect on peoples views on the world?