We Media and Democracy - Rae Griffiths

Over the summer holidays and the past few weeks, I have been paying close attention to what goes on in our world by reading the news daily. I enjoy reading the news as I find it really fascinating, especially when it’s about topics that I am interested in. For our homework we were told not to go out looking for news, but to note down when we heard about something interesting, and where i found the information from (what platform/site). After gathering all of my news stories, i analysed where the main sources of news came from and thought to myself whether they’re reliable or not. If i read a headline on face book and it was appealing to me, I would look further into the article, but then go onto my BBC news app to see the full story so I could see if it was true, but also to get a more in depth understanding of the particular news article.

From carrying out some research in class, most people my age (17) are more likely to go online and use the BBC news app or a social media website such as Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat to access their news because it is very convenient for them as they can just get out their phone and look at it whenever they want to, as you no longer need the TV to find out news, and using the internet means you can also keep up to date with the latest news stories that are happening around the world.

However, when comparing these results from school, to the ones that i found out online from an older generation of people aged around 50, i was surprised to see the huge difference in the way we get our news. 75% of adults in the UK say they get their news from TV, however, 90% of people over 55 get their news from TV, and when we compare this to people aged between 16-24, only 56% of them said that they got their news from the TV. 44% of the older generation also said that their main source of news is from the radio.

I am 17 and my main sources of the news is not like the majority of people my age, as my main source is the TV, as I watch it every morning and some nights. I don’t just use the TV though to find out about what’s happening locally, and in the rest of our world. I have the BBC news app that is downloaded onto my phone which i check every day, and have the main stories come through as notifications to my phone so im sure not to miss anything. Another news source i use quite alot is snapchat. I enjoy using the snapchat news stories because the stories that they shown are all in different categories, and you can chose what type of news you can read, ranging from buzz feed which includes things like celebrity couples and all reality life, and then there’s sky sports story where you get to keep up to date with all the latest events in sport and the scores. However, if i see something im interested in on snapchat and i want to read up more on it or see if it was true, i would go to the bbc news app as this is the source of news i trust the most. This is because the bbc are not towards any side, and they are not biased, meaning that you hear the correct story, and if theres an argument, then you can hear both sides of the story, where as on a website such as the daily mirror, sky, the sun, these companies will all have a preferred wing, either right or left, meaning they will write in their news papers in a way that makes the other wing look bad, or not as good.

One piece of news I found out in the summer that caught my eye was the news that ‘Charlotte Crosby breaks down in tears in an emotional interview as she reveals she was rushed into hospital for emergency surgery due to ectopic pregnancy’. This was the headline that caught my eye when I was on Facebook, so I decided to look into it and read more. It was an article that the daily mirror posted showing her side of the story between her and her romance with Gaz beadle, who she filmed Geordie shore with. The story was obviously true, as it shown pictures of her in the interview crying, but it wasn’t until a few days later when Gaz’s side of the story came out, and some of the facts were slightly different. I then went onto their twitter accounts to see if there as any more information that had come straight from them, instead of the daily mirror changing facts to favour one side or the other. As the info from twitter comes straight from them, I trusted this more than what the daily mail wrote, as the daily mirror change stories to make them sound more dramatic so it sells better.

In recent years, more people have been getting involved with the media, as we now have the technolohy to film from our smartphones and post them online so the whole world can see. We used to have to just rely on the tv to find out the major news stories, but now, its on so many platforms including twitter facebook and snapchat, However I find it really interesting how media 3.0 makes the news stories that appear tailored to your liking and interest. The way different forums or organisations can present data and stories to online users all over the world fascinates me. It allows people everywhere to become more engaged within the news and also sets them up with a platform to voice their own opinions and share what they have witnessed first-hand.