Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Social Induced Journalism

What Is Journalism’s Place in Social Media? Do we still need journalists in the age of social media? Are journalists in danger of becoming irrelevant because of the rise of social media?



A survey named The Social Media Impact (#SMING14)  conducted by ING featured an international group of PR practitioners and journalists showing  the passing of the crown from traditional media to social media and the impact it has on journalist. The one agenda that come out of the event was that, Journalists widely use social media posts despite having doubts about their reliability. At the same time PR professionals believe that news is becoming less reliable as journalists do less fact-checking.



Social media is about networking and communicating through text, video, blogs, and pictures, status updates on sites such as Tumblr, Instagram Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn or microblogs such as Twitter.

(video link) about social media

Wikipedia stated Social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content."

 A journalism major might be thinking twice about their career path perusing that Degree or diploma. In fear that social media fueled by the internet will cut them out like what Napster/mp3s did to CDs and what has happened to video stores because of Netflix. It reach the point were by Oxford University held social media convention tackling the issue (link)




But where does PR stand in this beef?  It has become the norm were PR is the thin line between fact and fiction seen as the Morpheus of The Matrix that is the media, be it spinning, controlling, limiting access and protecting clients at the expense of the truth. It’s at a point where Journalism loves to hate PR, to the point where PR is being objectified to a secrecy bill towards Whistle-blowers and journalists.



The issue is further dwelled into by  Julia Hobsbawm   though many ‘ you know who”  will argue that it has been sugar coated in favour of the former. websites such as  10000words.net and savethemedia.com are essential in educating and understanding  social media sites and the ways in which journalists could work off What’s you take, is is journalism coming to end? comment .




So This Is What It Has Come To: 5 digital trends for public relations practitioners to watch in the next year.



What’s the future of public relations?  Changing perceptions?  Influencing audience behavior? brand backpacking?  Engaging audiences in social channels? I take a look at 5 digital  trends of 2015 and beyond


 1.Rise of the 'inner-net:

 This is simplly were by we humans are connected not by the use of smartphones or through the    internet but simple by our anatomy and brains. We have reached a stage where we humans become  digitalise. Manipulating ourselves into Cyborgs from Memento narrative camera, Google glass  headset, running on batteries, heart monitors, BMI trackers





Chris Dancy is a primary example of this. Known as The most connected human on earth  here is a video of the lad 








2. IMAGES & video sharing services: 

Social networks like Instagram, Pinterest, Vines and Tumblr, will be overhauling and bringing the fall of words when it comes to communication. Pictures and short vids seem to be depicting the term a picture paints a 1000 words (and beyond) to new heights here are some memes









3. ICT still growing:  The South African government has revamped the department of communication into  Department of Telecommunicationsand Postal Services .


4.SEO: Search engine optimization is  the process of affectingthe visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's"natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results, wikipedia  and this what small businesses, bloggers and freelancers should be making use of to get their brand or point across. Heres a video on how to start your own SEO by Maile Ohye of Google: 




5. Citizen journalism: this is something that I’ve covered in my blog post titled Social Induced Journalism were by social media has broke the traditional media were average Joe post news faster than accredited journalist  through Twitter, YouTube etc. This evolution creates the opportunity for PR & content marketing pros


Citizen Journalism On The Rise: