New Media?

New forms of media in today’s society have challenge the world of media publishing as we previously know it to be. Now, information is easily found on the Internet. According to an article by Vin Crosbie, approximately one billion people in the world use the Internet to provide and receive news information (Rebuilding Media, 2006).

Source: Reuters

Twitter has now altered the roles of traditional journalism in today’s new media ecosystem. As reported by Gary Lee, ‘over the next 30 minutes’, he writes, ‘2.3 million Tweets will fly’ (Journalistics, 2011). 

Source: Arkarthick.com

Is Twitter the new journalism?


Twitter has reached out to people faster than the mainstream media. Examples include the explosion in Virginia and the tornado in Colorado (Rowse, 2008). Thus, it is seen by many as a news platform. In fact, Twitter has been so influential that journalists are pushed to join the social network to use it as an additional tool to their profession (Berkowitz, 2008). 

Source: Trade Newswire

New media concepts require that a person has a device with access to the Internet, such as mobile phones and computers (Aids.gov, 2011). New media concepts believe in greater connections and collaborations between people from one place to another (Aids.gov, 2011).

These ‘new media’ are referred to as ‘multimodal texts’. In her article, Maureen Walsh defined the term as containing more than one mode of communication (Walsh 2006). Communication may take place through written language or the digital media. (Walsh 2006). 

The affordance of Twitter – allowing status updates in 140 words – enables users develop a language on their own that is brief and straight to the point (Rook, 2011). Also, Twitter is real-time messaging, as compared to mainstream media such as newspapers (Rook, 2011).  


No wonder so many start to refer to Twitter to get their daily dosage of ‘news’, even well-known news stations now feel the need to have an account if they want to stay in the game - 

Source: Wired

Source: BBC

:)

References:

Berkowitz, L 2008, US: Twitter, the new breaking news warning system, Editors Weblog, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2008/05/us_twitter_the_new_breaking_news_warning.php>.

Rook M 2011, Digital Scholarship, Krause Innovation Studio, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.personal.psu.edu/sum16/blogs/innovation_studio/2011/08/digitalscholarship.html>.

Rowse, D 2008, Twitizen Journalism: Can Twitter Be a Real News Platform?, Twitip, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://www.twitip.com/twitizen-journalism-can-twitter-be-a-real-news-platform/>.

What is New Media 2011, Aids. gov, viewed 22 August 2011, <http://aids.gov/using-new-media/basics/what-is-new-media/>.