Two Sides to Every Story<\/span><\/h2>\nHaving seen social media’s power to inform, and mislead, the persistent question remains: Can social media be a valuable news source?<\/p>\n
If you’re an advocate of social media’s growing influence, you might argue that for the most part, when it comes to communication, it has been a force for good. Twitter, for example, has become a valuable tool that has connected the world in unprecedented ways. And many would argue that it's still the best alternative to corporate-backed news outlets with inherent special interests. By democratizing the news, the bias that has dogged popular media outlets disappears. We can now count on getting information directly from the source. And that seems like a good thing. But it isn't perfect, and there are some real risks.<\/p>\n
For one, social media makes it harder to find the source and know who to trust. After all, if the information came from your friend's feed or wall, that gives it some credibility. When a public Facebook page posted Boston Police scanner conversations that suggested that a missing undergraduate from Brown University might be responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings, it spread across Facebook to more than 319,000 people. The problem was, it hadn't been verified – and it wasn't true.<\/p>\n
"If speed is the currency of the modern information era," Molly Wood, a writer for CNET wrote on April 19, "misinformation is the increasingly high cost."<\/p>\n
Social media has proved that it can increase awareness, improve understanding and give regular people a bigger voice. Of course, that technology isn't all good all the time. Nothing is. What this probably means is that the best we can all do is become a little more cynical about our news sources, and a little more cautious about what we choose to believe. But then come to think of it, that isn't such a bad thing anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gone are the days when people had to turn on the television or tune into a radio program to get the scoop on current events. In fact, fewer people than ever are doing it. In recent years, the number of people who cite the Internet as their main source for news has been rising, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7622,"featured_media":48570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[586],"tags":[],"category_partsoff":[],"class_list":["post-48569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emerging-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Fast News Nation: Why Social Media Almost Works As a News Source - Techopedia<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n