What exactly has social media not done for us?
I believe that social media has allowed for information and news to be more readily accessible to people everywhere. I however do not think that it has increased the quality of it in all aspects. For the news, social media has definitely increased the quality. Think about all of the places you can now receive up to the minute news! Apps on Iphones and Blackberry's for CNN, The Weather Network or TSN. That is all quality news that people want to hear about. An example of this is how closely I am able to follow Journal articles about what is going on in Egypt the past two weeks.
Where it has not improved the quality is the information, the random "stuff" that fills our internet And more than half of the time the information is incorrect! An example of this would be Wikipedia. Anyone can go onto Wikipedia and add their own information and it is not considered a credible source.
So, to recap. I believe that for the news aspect the quality has been increased but for the information, for the most part, the internet is overrun by anyone who wants to write an article.
Alright kelly, i do not agree with what you said about the quality of news vs information. News has allowed us to increase the quantity of news we receive because we can get it blasted right to our cell phones, but this usually happens when we are following a major event like what is happening in Egypt. But what about when there really is not anything big happening? do you think our news still has the same quality. Personally I see the same quantity of news occurring, but with less than breaking news quality. Also - I am pro wiki :) I think that is is a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand the basics of anything. I guarantee you that if you were to look up say pneumonia, the Holocaust or anything else 99% of the information on there is correct. Being the generation that we are we have a better understanding of these resources, we know how they are made so there is no need to consider them useless as long as you remember how they came to be. Personally I think that wikipedia is an amazing tool to use, it gives me a basic understanding of what i am looking up then from there i can go ahead to contrast the information given on wiki to sites that are 100% credible. Just like you newscasts, wikipedia allows dynamic information that is constantly being updated - it is like reading a newspaper about Egypt from two weeks ago versus reading one today - the information is still right, but there is more to the story. Wikipedia allows pieces of the story to come together from any source.
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly, and Steph. I agree with both of you in some ways.
ReplyDeleteSteph- I agree that Wikipedia can be used for beginners to understand basics, and that 99% of it is true. But I can also see Kelly's side where there is some false information being lofted around on the internet.
Kelly- as for news, I guess in a way it has increased the quality. I still view all this social media input as a way of increasing the quantity, not necessarily the quality of news. I realize that we can now get up-to-date notifications on our phones, but is it actually improvement on what they're saying, or just an improvement on how to say it? Should we actually believe everything the news tells us, or is there maybe another person that can have a different take on it- like a citizen? Some of the best news stories are from everyday citizens that were actually there when it happened and have a truth on the matter at hand.