"We Media" and Democracy - Bobby Salt

Throughout the entirety of the summer, a large sum of different news stories would have become accessible for me. Whether or not I came across just the headline or read more into the depth of the story is another case.



On an estimated basis I can presume that around 70% of the news stories coming into contact with me are sport related. This is due to my internet use having a web 3.0 concept within its capabilities, making my search engine and social media use to be suited to my interests. For instance, any adverts or recommended pages popping up on my twitter feed will be no doubt football based simply due to the majority of non-personal pages I currently follow being football related themselves. Besides social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, the only news story access I choose to have is with applications such as: Sky Sports Football News and BBC Sport and the TV channel Sky Sports News HQ. I personally chose to download, follow and regularly tune into these news bases simply for the reliability. In the past I’ve followed highly rumour based news stations/pages such as ‘Transfer News Live’ which grabbed my attention through the production of eye catching, yet completely untrue headlines. But a large sum of news pages, blogs, websites, shows etc. do this in order to just gain the page views because at the end of the day, that’s what they get paid for. There will be more information and depth beyond the rumour just to make it more believable but I can imagine the majority of readers, including myself, don’t read any further than the headline itself. Whereas Sky Sports and BBC Sport are trusted, reliable sources of high popularity, so if they were to go and post a news story made up mainly of rumours including an eye catching headline just to get page views, I can imagine the followers/fans of the site would create masses of complaints reflecting badly upon the BBC and SKY. And as both sources are open to public domain, the possibility of large quantities of complaints being made is likely if such a headline was to be published.

When going about my daily routine, not even focusing on news stories, it was hard for me to not see the transfer headline that grabbed every football fans attention: the David De Gea transfer saga story. Very long story short, Manchester United FC failed to send Real Madrid CF the official transfer paperwork on time before the deadline so David De Gea remained a Manchester United player despite fully confirmed agreements for the sale and purchasing of the player occurring. The dispute was broadcasted, televised and analysed across all football news story platforms that I follow and watch. The reliability of these sources is the primary factor as to why so many people tune into them and not some less popular source. Sky and BBC both send out camera crews and reporters to the scene of a specific news story, which in this case was Manchester United and Real Madrid’s training grounds in order to reinforce the fact that they’re as up to date as possible with the happenings of the story. As well as this, viewers at home are able to see constant updates and additional information appear upon their screens as flash update sections and side scrollers (banners). Although it won’t just be BBC and Sky that do this, sport pages, especially when it comes to stories of this magnitude, won’t go off on a tangent, they’ll stick to the key details and facts to maintain the audiences intrigued focus.



Another news story that appeared on my news feed was the announcement that Bear Grylls and Barack Obama were going to appear and take part in the popular ITV based TV show “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here”. Although the story was eventually proven to be just a rumour, I saw a large quantity of people on twitter believing the story and getting quite excited about it. Proving that an eye catching headline with no proof or evidence can still get large sums of views and openings. The reliability of the sources I read were of a low standard due to twitter allowing everyone and anyone to post and share whatever content they want. This is why I fully believe the theory put in place by Dan Gilmour that technology is making the news more democratic. In addition news stories like this reflects the point Dan Gilmour also made about us, (the public) being "monkeys" and believing anything we read online, because I must admit, although the headline seemed quite far fetched when Barack Obama get included within the shows cast, there was a hint of belief within my reading of the article. The newly introduced democracy aspect of modern news comes from the fact that the public can state their opinions on blogs, vlogs and Youtube and if an individual’s input on a story reflects a lot of other people’s opinions and gets shared across a large sum of social media platforms then that original source can be invited to share their thoughts upon a broadcasted or largely popular news source. Furthering this democracy.



 I believe people mainly use twitter or any other social media site for news stories simply because of the easily accessible nature of the applications. Especially since the development of the smart phone, every individual in possession of one is literally a few taps away from any and all news stories whether they’re local or global. I don’t find it a positive or negative fact that I don’t gain my knowledge of news stories from newspapers or TV. I believe some sources, those two in particular are losing their popularity as sources such as social media and smart phones are progressively developing. Many people will continue to watch TV and read newspapers for years to come but for me personally, applications on my smart phone are the simplest and quickest access, making them my favourite. Although I do believe this transfer from TV and newspaper to social media will cause a decline in large conglomerate sources as the public aren’t able to post and input their own opinions on TV and newspaper hardly at all. Whereas social media encourages this. An aspect that many find appealing.