We Media and Democracy -Amber Needham

We Media and Democracy

Over the summer holidays, I gathered many important news stories from various different sources. For example I gathered news stories from my friends and family – word of mouth –T.V, Online and via Social Media.

One of the stories that I heard over summer was the killing of two journalists in Virginia on August 28^th 2015. Alison Parker and Adam Ward, the journalist and cameraman of WDJB Media, were shot dead during a broadcast in America by a gunman, who later killed himself. The gunman had claimed that staff had mistreated him, and that he was a former employee. I heard the news from my Mum, who was outraged at the story. She had found out the news by watching BBC News, as they reported on it. I did trust that my mum would have given me as detailed of an account as she could, although word of mouth is not completely reliable, as my mum told me “I can’t believe it, I think it happened in New York” when this was an incorrect fact and it actually occurred in Virginia. My mum had gotten confused, as we had previously booked a holiday to New York, and therefore she was scaring herself into thinking that it had happened there, which is a natural reaction to big news like that. As well as this my mum didn’t mention the gunman’s motives for killing the news reporters, which I thought was a very important detail. This could be because she was so shocked she couldn’t process the rest of the information, or because she didn’t hear it on the television – but this just proves that word of mouth cannot be the best source of information because people can often leave out crucial details. When I heard the news I immediately went onto Google and typed in ‘Gunman Reporter Killing’ as I knew things would come up as the story was very recent. The Guardian provided a lot of information and I was able to read up more on the upsetting subject.

Another way I came across important news stories during the summer holidays was via the Twitter App on my phone. Twitter is a social media platform, in which certain stories trend using the hashtag signs. The story I saw on twitter was due to the excessive amount of tweets on my timeline regarding the news story. The story was that same sex marriage was legalised across the USA, and the hashtag relating to this was #LoveWins and #MarriageEquality. When I heard the happy news I was filled with joy for all the campaigners and all of the people who this would massively affect. I tweeted about the news myself saying ……… On my Twitter feed I saw many tweets from celebrities, such as Justin Timberlake tweeting “#LoveWins” and Harry Styles tweeting “Huge day for America. Happy to see the news. All the love”. With my Twitter news feed exploding with the mass amount of support I felt very happy and relieved for many people that same sex marriage was no longer an issue. President Obama even tweeted saying “Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins” which definitely proved to me that the whole event was legitimate because the President only tweets on crucial matters in America’s society. As well as Twitter as a platform that informed me of the news, I also saw Snapchat – a popular image sharing App – had added a ‘story’ regarding the news. Snapchat created a Marriage Equality ‘story’ which is a series of images and videos taken by everyday people. A final social media platform that helped me to further understand the velocity of the decision to legalise same sex marriage was Facebook and the overwhelming amount of posts from many of my friends about the news. Facebook even created a rainbow filter which many of my friends added to their profile picture to show their support and it shows the power of social media in spreading news. The fact that there was such a positive response made the news extremely happy for many people. I do feel that the underlying issue that, not all countries have recognized same sex marriage of allowed it, is very important despite the celebrations that took place. Vietnam is just one example where it doesn’t offer legal recognition to unions of the same sex. So whilst the majority of America, and the United Kingdom and other countries celebrated the result, it could also show how sometimes our social media feeds can shadow us away from many principal issues.

I would definitely say that the news story that I came across a lot during the summer and the few months preceding August was the news of Bruce Jenner’s transition into Caitlyn Jenner which I saw on ‘Good Morning Britain’ on the television, and following that many other media platforms. Media is very powerful in this instance because when Caitlyn Jenner joined Twitter on June 1^st 2015, she was the fastest person to reach 1 million followers – beating even President Obama’s twitter record. This is due to the awareness on many different platforms of Caitlyn’s transition, and her iconic Vanity Fair cover and article. I personally am not an avid reader of Vanity Fair, or many other magazines for that matter, however due to my interest in Caitlyn’s transition, and me wanting to know a lot of information about the issues she faced – as I watched her a lot as Bruce on ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’- I bought the issue. The issue talked about Caitlyn’s decision to transition, and was released not long after her interview with Diane Sawyer. The Diane Sawyer interview attracted many high ratings as people were eager to learn, alike me, why Bruce Jenner – winner of the 1976 decathlon – wanted to transition. The decision to transition so publicly, and Jenner even has a reality series documenting her journey called ‘I Am Cait’ is both heart-warming and educational as we learn about the issues that many transgender males and females face. Due to the wide amount of sources from which information about Caitlyn is revealed, it Is hard to know which sources to trust. For example some magazine articles I wouldn’t trust, as they tend to make a lot of things up to fill up pages, whereas the Vanity Fair magazine – a well trusted source – did a personal interview exclusively with Caitlyn so I know this could be trusted. The Television show and her personal twitter are the other two main sources I would trust, as it is Caitlyn personally informing us on how things are and trying to be a voice for the transgender community. Wikipedia is a source I wouldn’t trust in this case, as it can be very easy to hack and change information on peoples Wikipedia pages therefore there could potentially be false information on there.

To conclude, I believe that Dan Gilmor, author of “We Media and Democracy”, and his views on democracy prove to be correct. As he says that “the spreading of news will occur” often which is definitely true due to the many different platforms of media. News stories can travel within milliseconds from one side of the world to another, showing how much technology has developed and affected the media industry. Dan Gillmor also mentioned that there will be a large increase in democracy, which I believe is accurate as it allows people to share news stories and attitudes. The views could also influence others, but also due to democracy it could also test other people’s views as well.

By Amber Needham