'WE MEDIA' AND DEMOCRACY BY LOIS WOODWARD

'We the media' was created by Dan Gillmor and is the central theory and idea that technology is making media more democratic. Technological advances mean that the former audience can create new content and be more active in setting the news agenda. But as citizen journalists,  where do we get this new from? And is it reliable? 

As a teen in the 21st century reading the news is a priority, I get most news stories from Facebook or Twitter, things that accqauintences have shared that they believe is important. The problems with 'we media' is the quality and reliability of the sources, people sharing or believing things without questioning the truth.

Most news we rely on is what hear from social media websites,  but that doesn't make it true at all. Most likely that news came from amature citizen journalists who will do anything to get their story in the news. Also words are twisted and false information is shared around the topic of the news making it less and less reliable.
I heard many stories over the summer, including big news like the death of Cilla Black, which shook the nation as she was a well respected public figure, and I found out about her death over a share on Facebook, at first I thought it was a hoax due the fact that it was shared on Facebook, then it was being shared all over the internet, Twitter and I saw Instagram posts. Then I saw in a local news paper in a shop on the front page, it stated that Cilla Black was dead. That's when I knew it was true, but until then I was a sceptic.

It goes to show that news shared on social media can be true, but it doesn't mean we believe it. Global news is shared on Facebook and we share it to give our opinion on it, which we either share our positive or negative view which then other people will share it and it will get passed around the internet.