INDEX
INTRODUCTION
INTERNET
USAGE OF INTERNET ACROSS THE GLOBE
USAGE OF INTERNET IN INDIA
INTERNET AS A NEWS SOURCE
ETHICAL DEBATE
ISSUES OF AUTHENTICITY
SOCIAL MEDIA
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
Staying updated is an indispensable phenomenon and before even newspapers, there were some ancient methods including announcements even on an emergency basis were used to stay aware of people, gatherings for exchanging information, traveling and writing journals, etc.
Today, internet news is still one of the major sources of information when it comes to local or international politics, sports, weather or just anything you can think of because technology is expanding every day. News agencies that provide news content to major news radio and TV channels and newspapers daily, now share their exclusively generated content to online news platforms as well.
The internet has already surpassed newspapers as a source for national and international news. Long gone are the days when political information was confined to a few network news channels and major national newspapers or magazines.
The proportion of people going online for election-related news and information has more than doubled since the end of the 2000 race.
INTERNET
What is the Internet?
The internet is a global collection of networks of computers connected to each other. These networks allow data to be transferred between the computers/devices connected to them. This exchange of data is possible only because all the computers on the network play by the same set of rules, called the Internet Protocol (IP).
How does this Global Network call the Internet Work?
Be it for a Google search for your favorite movie, or to a friend, what’s essentially happening when you use the internet is that you’re sending a message from your device to another device. Thus, when you use the internet, what you’re doing is sending and receiving messages (requests) to and from other computers and devices on the network.
Data Transmission on the Internet
The computer and devices that we use are called clients and the computers that websites such as Google or Facebook use are called servers. The websites we access are all files on the hard disks of the respective servers. Our devices do not directly access these files. When we access Google for example, our client device forwards its requests to Google servers via our internet service providers (ISPs). The results also come to us via our ISPs. Which is why we cannot access the internet if our connection to our ISPs gets terminated.
What is the Web?
The World Wide Web—usually called the Web for short—is a collection of different websites you can access through the Internet. A website is made up of related text, images, and other resources. Websites can resemble other forms of media—like newspaper articles or television programs—or they can be interactive in a way that's unique to computers.
The purpose of a website can be almost anything: a news platform, an advertisement, an online library, a forum for sharing images, or an educational site like us!
Once you are connected to the Internet, you can access and view websites using a type of application called a web browser. Just keep in mind that the web browser itself is not the Internet; it only displays websites that are stored on the Internet.
How does the Internet works?
It's important to realize that the Internet is a global network of physical cables, which can include copper telephone wires, TV cables, and fiber optic cables. Even wireless connections like Wi-Fi and 3G/4G rely on these physical cables to access the Internet.
When you visit a website, your computer sends a request over these wires to a server. A server is where websites are stored, and it works a lot like your computer's hard drive. Once the request arrives, the server retrieves the website and sends the correct data back to your computer. What's amazing is that this all happens in just a few seconds!
USAGE OF INTERNET ACROSS THE GLOBE
Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. In 1995, it was less than 1%.
The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013.
The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014.
The chart and table below show the number of global internet users per year since 1993:
How many internet users does each country have?
The internet has been one of our most transformative and fast-growing technologies. Globally the number of internet users increased from only 413 million in 2000 to over 3.4 billion in 2016. The one billion barriers were crossed in 2005. Every day over the past five years, an average of 640,000 people went online for the first time.7
But how many people from each country are online? In the maps we see the total number of users by country, and the percentage of a country’s population who are users.
China and India take the top two slots despite having only 50 and 26 percent online, respectively. The top six countries by users (and the only countries with over 100 million) in 2016/17 were:
China = 765 million
India = 391 million
United States = 245 million
Brazil = 126 million
Japan = 116 million
Russia = 109 million
The internet has been growing at an incredible rate; many countries – including India, Bangladesh, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Malawi – have doubled the number of users in the last 3 years alone.
Around half of the world is not yet online – as Max wrote, the internet’s history has only just begun, but with 27,000 new users every hour, many will experience it for the first time soon
USAGE OF INTERNET IN INDIA
With over 560 million internet users, India is the second largest online market in the world, ranked only behind China. It was estimated that by 2023, there would be over 650 million internet users in the country. Despite the large base of internet users, the internet penetration rate in the country stood at around 50 percent in 2020. This meant that around half of the 1.37 billion Indians had access to the internet that year. There has been a consistent increase in internet accessibility compared to just five years ago, when the internet penetration rate was around 27 percent.
However, internet accessibility and use in the country largely varied based on factors like gender and socio-economic divide. It was estimated that in 2019, there were 290 million internet users in rural India compared to 337 million urban internet users. But it is worth mentioning that the majority of Indian internet users were between 20 and 29 years of age, and a slightly higher proportion of these users were from rural parts. At the same time, there were far more male internet users in the country compared to female users. And this digital gender gap only increased further in the rural hinterlands compared to urban metros.
A majority of India’s digital population accessed the internet via their mobile phones. In 2018, about 29 percent of the country’s total population were mobile internet users, and this was expected to grow to over 35 percent, or approximately 500 million users by 2023. An increased availability of cheap data plans along with various government initiatives under the Digital India campaign worked together to make mobile the primary internet access in the country. Notably, 4G networks were the most widely used across urban and rural India in 2019.
One aspect wherein India shares the characteristics of other global internet users is its passion for social media. It was estimated that by 2023, there would be almost 450 million social network users in India. Furthermore, the share of Indian population that access social networks is expected to jump from 24 percent in 2018 to over 31 percent in 2023. Facebook was the most popular social networking site in the country. In fact, with about 280 million Facebook users in the country, India had the largest Facebook user base in the world as of 2020.
Is the Internet Good in India?
Globally, India was ranked 89th out of 149 countries/regions by average internet connection speed and 97th by average peak connection speed. 42% of internet users in India have an average internet connection speed of above 4 Mbit/s, 19% have a speed of over 10 Mbit/s, and 10% enjoy speeds over 15 Mbit/s.
Connecting the Unconnected
India has already seen explosive growth in internet users, fueled by Silicon Valley's rush to tap vast new markets and government investment in modernizing the country's infrastructure.
Google (GOOGLE) has helped set up free Wi-Fi services at over 400 train stations across India, and also runs a digital literacy program to teach rural Indian women how to use the internet.
Facebook (FB) wants to set up 20,000 hotspots through its Express Wi-Fi initiative that connects users for about 10 rupees ($0.14) a day. The government has a plan to install 250,000 hotspots in villages across India
Number of internet users in India from 2015 to 2020 with a forecast until 2025(in millions)
Sources- www.satista.com, edition.cnn.com
INTERNET AS A NEWS SOURCE IN INDIA
Internet in India:
Internet in India began in 1986 and was available only to the educational and research community. It was publicly available from 15 August 1995. As of 2020, there are 718.74 million actives internet users that comprise 54.29% of the population.
The Indian Government has embarked on projects such as BharatNet, Digital India, Made in India and Startup India to further expedite the growth of internet-based ecosystems.
Internet user base:
India has the second highest number of internet users in the world. The following table provides an overview of key internet subscriber statistics in India as on 31 December 2019.
Statistics
Figures
Total Subscribers
718.74 million
Narrowband subscribers
56.806 million
Broadband subscribers
661.938 million
Wired subscribers
22.386 million
Wireless subscribers
696.36 million
Urban subscribers
450.31 million
Rural subscribers
268.43 million
Overall net penetration
54.29%
Urban net penetration
106.22%
Rural net penetration
29.83%
Online journalism in India:
Online journalism in India is a growing field shared between traditional media and the growing blogging community. Large media companies, traditionally print and television focused, continue to dominate the journalism environment now online but a growing group of dedicated bloggers are providing an independent voice.
The number of online news editions is seen as especially low because of the multitude of languages spoken in India. Of the 22 languages officially recognized, only 12 of the non-English languages were accounted for in a survey of online editions.
India’s internet penetration is low – only 3.7%. Also, most websites are only available in English, which skews the viewership to only 10% of the population that is concentrated in urban centers. Conversely, India ranks third in number of Twitter users.
With the emergence of high speed data and faster mobile data services such as 3G and LTE, videos from some of India’s best TV journalists have been made available online. Both NDTV and CNBC, two TV news reporting power houses in India, also have a strong online presence. The top five journalists in India all come from within the ranks of these stations.
Another emerging favorite platform for journalists is Twitter. Journalists from all walks – Business, Political, Sports, and Religion - have come together to form a list for ease of following the person or topic that one might find interesting.
Indian newspapers on the Net:
Indian newspapers had started using computers for word processing and page layout since 1987. The newspapers one after another switched over from teleprinters and telex machines to e-mail to send and receive news when Internet was available 1995 onwards. The changeover was quicker when a number of competing Internet service providers descended on the scene during the last decade. Later, mobile phone instruments with cameras were made available to journalists.
Yet, these newspapers were slow to launch their web editions. Only 48 dailies had their web sites by 1998 when a researcher undertook documentation of status of online journalism. An extension of the study established that there were 116 Indian dailies with web editions in year 2006.
Internet Era:
India joined cyber world in 1995, quite late compared to the West, although Internet was available to researchers earlier also. In the initial period, net access was limited to only four metros. It was very slow. Computer penetration was very low. However, the penetration improved as prices of computers began falling and net connectivity spread to small towns when private service providers came on the scene.
By 2007, India had an estimated base of 42 million Internet users, which was 3.6 per cent of the world users. Although this base was far below the Internet users of USA (which was 210,575,287), China (162,000,000), Japan (86,300,000) or Germany (50,426,117), India ranked fifth in the list of top twenty countries using Internet.
12 Marathi newspapers with websites provided hyperlinks for a fortnight as per their convenience during July and August, 2006. These are: Dainik Aikya, Belgaon Tarun Bharat, Deshdoot, Deshonnati, Kesari, Lokmat, Loksatta, Maharashtra Times, Pudhari, Sakal, Saamana and Tarun Bharat (Nagpur)
Similarly, following 13 English newspapers provided such links for two weeks as per their convenience between July and September 2006: Asian Age, Business Standard, Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Daily Excelsior, Economic Times, Financial Express, Hindu, Hindu Business Line, Hindustan Times, Indian Express (also Express India portal), Malayala Manorama (English section), Pioneer, Times of India.
Most newspapers do not get advertisements for the net editions, with only a few exceptions like The Times of India (TOI) group of newspapers, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times (HT), The Indian Express (IE), Sakal and Jagran. The number of advertisements ranged from 1 (in case of Pudhari) to 30 (in case of The Hindustan Times). The situation was the same in 1998 when most of the 48 newspapers did not earn much advertisement revenue for the web editions.
In the first study covering the initial phase from 1995-1998, only ten per cent readers were Indians residing in India, while 62 per cent readers were non-resident Indians residing in USA and four per cent in Canada. Apparently, the growth of readership within India has been possible due to penetration of computers and availability of Internet connectivity in small towns and cities of the country.
States in India: The readership is more in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, compared to other states in the country. These are also the states where Information and Communication Technology have made rapid strides, as against the rest of the states.
Increase in Women Readers: The proportion of female Internet newspaper readers is considerably smaller than male readers of both English and Marathi Internet newspapers. (13% female readers for English newspapers and 15% Marathi newspapers). However it has almost doubled in eight years. In 1998, the readership comprised 7% female readers.
Age-group: Majority readership is in the age group of 21-40 years.
Education: Most readers are highly educated (Master or Ph.D. degree-holders) in case of both English and Marathi newspapers. (60% and 54% respectively).
Profession: Professionals from the fields of IT, Education and Media constitute almost half (48%) the readership of English newspapers on the Internet. In case of Marathi newspapers also these three fields account for 53% of total readership.
Digital age:
More and more people are reading newspapers digitally and it is a global audience for the best publications. Worldwide, printed newspapers, with a reported circulation of 519 million, reach an estimated 2.3 billion people every day, 20 per cent more than the internet (Riess 2011). But the ‘terms of trade’ are shifting in favour of the web, mobile, and newer interactive digital platforms.
Many newspapers have excellent websites offering rich, many-sided, multi-media content, including long-form features, investigative articles, and thoughtful analysis. Several journalism schools round the world now take digital journalism seriously.
A major development has been the arrival on the global media scene of Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, a completely new kind of digital-technology-enabled, notfor-profit player. In less than five eventful years and especially since July 2010 when it geared up to a new level of journalistic operations and engagement, WikiLeaks has changed the rules of the game for newspapers and the news media everywhere, including India8. It has enabled and empowered whistleblowing and ‘principled leaking’ through the power of digital technology and its ideals, functioned as a reliable and generous source and publisher, and raised the bar for investigative journalism. It has inspired other experiments or ventures to develop technologies, secure electronic drop boxes, and platforms to encourage and enable whistleblowing or leaking on issues that matter.
Fake news in India:
Fake news in India refers to misinformation or disinformation[1] in the country which is spread through word of mouth and traditional media and more recently through digital forms of communication such as edited videos, memes, unverified advertisements and social media propagated rumors. Fake news spread through social media in the country has become a serious problem, with the potential of it resulting in mob violence, as was the case where at least 20 people were killed in 2018 as a result of misinformation circulated on social media.
According to a report by The Guardian, the Indian media research agency CMS stated that the cause of spread of fake news was that India "lacked (a) media policy for verification". Additionally, law enforcement officers have arrested reporters and journalists for "creating fictitious articles", especially when the articles were controversial.
In India, the spread of fake news has occurred with relation to political and religious matters. The IT Cells of the BJP, Congress and other political parties have been accused of spreading fake news against the party's political opponents and any campaigns against the party. The BJP is accused of spreading fake news targeting religious minorities.
Examples:
Indians were bombarded with messages on WhatsApp which claimed to contain "helpful" information related to the disease, along with home remedies which could keep the virus at bay.
The WhatsApp message claims that an "old Chinese doctor" had found a cure to coronavirus, and that's one bowl of garlic. But the WHO has clearly specified that there is no scientific evidence to study this. Bad news for those hoarding garlic cloves to fight off the virus. Just like vampires, the humble garlic has no effect on a virus that has already claimed over 3,000 lives around the world.
In a post-truth era, the contagion of fake news has gripped the world in equal parts. Right from the United states of America, to emerging economies like India, Brazil and others, no one seems to be spared. Deeply interlinked with technological developments, “disinformation” and “misinformation” have become pervasive in our news bubbles. As the world’s largest democracy with the second largest population, the issue of fake news poses a unique threat in India. Not only do the low literacy rates make it hard to implement the true spirit of democratic decision-making, but add to that an explosion of fake news and divisive propaganda, and there looms a real threat to the country’s democratic fabric itself.
Do people trust online news?
In India, 36% of respondents trusted the news overall, including 45% in search and 34% in social media. In other markets, 42% of respondents trusted the news overall, with 33% trusting it in search and 23% in social media.
Two recent studies have found that less than half of online users trust the news they come across. A comparison between the two suggests that English speaking users in India trust online news overall less than users in other countries do, but they trust news found in search and social media more than those elsewhere do.
The India survey also found that 55% of respondents were concerned that expressing political views online could get them in trouble with the authorities, an India digital report prepared by the Reuters Institute showed.
These high levels of concern could be based in part on recent events in India. Since 2012 at least 17 people have been arrested for posting material that was considered offensive or threatening to a politician.
Indians trust people known to them for news
Indians trust people known to them the most when it comes to seeking reliable sources of news and information, trumping their belief in traditional sources of media, a new survey has found.
Newspapers and magazines come in second as the more conventional sources of news where Indians (77%) rest their trust, followed by news broadcast on television and radio (71%). Online platforms fetch the least amount of trust among Indians (66%) among the different forms of conventional media, according to a new study by research firm Ipsos titled "Trust in Media".
According to the survey, newspapers and magazines (82%) are also rated as the best source for obtaining relevant news and information, according to those surveyed by Ipsos. Personal relationships come next as a relevant source of news (79%), followed by television and radio (75%), online news websites and platforms (72%) and people known via the internet (62%).
Indians are wary of online sources of news and information. Trust in online sources of news remains low among Indians.
Of those surveyed, 67% Indians believe that there is prevalence of fake news in news and information of online news websites and platforms; 63% Indians feel that people they know predominantly through the internet are the purveyors of fake news in the news and information they share. However, 55% of those surveyed feel that even newspapers and magazines have prevalence of fake news in their information.
ETHICAL DEBATE
The Internet, in particular, has created a fourth kind of journalism in addition to print, radio, and television journalism—the so-called cyber journalism, digital journalism, or online journalism. This new digital environment sets up a number of ethical dilemmas for journalists.
We speak of a bidirectional process in which everyone may take part in producing and presenting the news. In other words, every individual becomes a potential publisher which raises its own new ethical issues.
WHO IS A JOURNALIST?
It is not always clear whether the term “journalist” begins or ends. If someone does what appears to be journalism, but refuses the label ‘journalist’ is he or she a journalist? citizens without journalistic training and who do not work for mainstream media call themselves journalists, or write in ways that fall under the general description of a journalist as someone who regularly writes on public issues for a public or audience.
WHAT IS JOURNALISM?
- We can look at clear examples of journalism over history and note the types of activities in which journalists engaged, e.g. gathering information, editing stories, publishing news and opinion.
- writers should not be called journalists unless they have highly developed skills, acquired usually through training or formal education, and unless they honor certain ethical norms.
-Anyone can be a journalist, and it is not worth arguing over who gets to call themselves a journalist.
ANONYMITY
Anonymity is accepted more readily online than in mainstream news media. Anonymity is praised as allowing freedom of speech and sometimes helping to expose wrongdoing. Critics say it encourages irresponsible and harmful comments.
When is anonymity ethically permissible and is it inconsistent for the media to enforce different rules on anonymity for different media platforms? What should be the ethical guidelines for anonymity offline and online?
SPEED, RUMOR AND CORRECTIONS
Speed puts pressure on newsrooms to publish stories before they are adequately checked and verified as to the source of the story and the reliability of the alleged facts. a media that thrives on speed and “sharing” creates the potential for great harm.
Inevitably, when one works at this speed, errors are made, from misspelling words to making factual errors. Should news organizations go back and correct all of these mistakes which populate mountains of material? Or should they correct errors later and not leave a trace of the original mistake.
The ethical challenge is to articulate guidelines for dealing with rumors and corrections in an online world that are consistent with the principles of accuracy, verification, and transparency.
IMPARTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AND PARTISAN JOURNALISM
Many online journalists see themselves as partisans or activists for causes or political movements, and reject the idea of objective or neutral analysis. Should objectivity be abandoned by all journalists? Which is best for a vigorous and healthy democracy – impartial journalism or partisan journalism?
Economically, mainstream newsrooms who uphold traditional principles such as impartiality increasingly feel compelled to move toward a more opinionated or partisan approach to news and commentary. Audiences are said to be attracted to strong opinion and conflicts of opinion.
The ethical challenge is to redefine what independent journalism in the public interest means for a media where many new types of journalism are appearing and where basic principles are being challenged.
ENTREPRENEURIAL NOT-FOR-PROFIT JOURNALISM
In response, many journalists have started not-for-profit newsrooms, news websites, and centers of investigative journalism based on money from foundations and donations from citizens.
How independent can such newsrooms be when they are so reliant on funds from a limited number of donors? What happens if the newsroom intends to report a negative story about one of its main funders? From whom will these newsrooms take money? How transparent will they be about who gives them money and under what conditions?
ISSUES OF AUTHENTICITY
While the Internet provides journalists with many new advantages, such as ease of information retrieval, increased speed of publishing, and new ways to reach audiences, recent years has shown that using the Internet for information gathering is not too taken lightly. The Web and social media seem quite “error-prone”, or put more bluntly: unreliable, untrusted and outright fake.
The traditional 24-hour cycle of news production, particularly common in the printed newspaper industry, has become less relevant. Many news organizations switched to the model of “online first”: news is published directly onto the Web, and, if still relevant and less time sensitive, it will also be published in printed newspapers or TV broadcasts. New news platforms even do not publish offline (e.g., physical newspapers) anymore.
Thus, journalists have less time to verify online information. This is furthermore aggravated because increased competition, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency on the work floor has led to many lay-offs. Journalists now need to produce content with a smaller staff and smaller budgets. This leads to a situation where a smaller journalistic workforce needs to supply news as soon as possible to its audience, based on a supply of online information which is - in part - unreliable, untrustworthy, or even plain fake.
The media already have an infrastructure to locate and report about viral online phenomena. To become news, a story must not only meet the criteria of newsworthiness and fit into journalists’ role perception. A story must first of all be noticed by reporters and editors.
Reporters have started to regularly follow what is going on in social and online media in areas that are part of their beats, and perceive this as an important part of their jobs . Some news organizations have even developed special beats focused on following what is happening on social media, while others have hired or trained staff and experts to monitor the online world. The methods used by these staff and experts in order to spot stories vary between simply trying to follow what's going on, using geo-location tags in order to drill down information about specific newsworthy events, searching for specific keywords, and using sophisticated specialist software to try to spot stories. In other words, routines for covering the online world and to use social media as sources for mainstream news have been developed .
Journalists were initially hesitant in accepting the Internet as a credible source due to their professional ideology. The origin of the extremely diverse Internet sources accessible is not always traceable. Hence, when using such information, it may be difficult to maintain journalistic standards (control and verifiability, among others). Journalists have reservations about the authenticity of Internet information, as the often uncertain origin of the information on offer makes verification difficult. Given that authenticity is an important journalistic value, it is to be expected that journalists have to have a certain degree of trust in the information they find on the Internet in order to actually make use of it.
Journalists differ in the degree to which they find the Internet a credible source. As the origin of the information and therefore the authenticity of the source are important factors in the selection process, these are expected to affect the decisions whether or not to use Internet information. Journalists who traditionally made frequent use of official, institutional sources can now gain access to a broad spectrum of digital databases. Furthermore, the Internet with its accessibility to many nonofficial sources, allows journalists to gather useful information from a much wider range.
Since the use of the Internet has been accepted and integrated into the daily activities of journalists, the question is to what extent the ascribed authenticity of Internet information may influence the use of various Internet applications.
SOCIAL MEDIA
In the era where likes and comments count more than the grades and marks, social media is indeed an influential factor today.
People generally of all ages and specifically the young people are more dwelling in social media than the actual world today.
It is the main media for these youngsters where information or news be it hard or soft flows across the screens and all they got to do is just to scroll and stick to any news or new information showing which serves to their interest.
Televisions or newspapers or radios (traditional sources of news) do provide news information but in the very busy locality wherein we dwell, time is very limited as well and so working men and students don’t get enough time to put their heads on TV or in newspapers rather to update themselves with the ongoing issues or news, they scroll through twitter, Instagram and Facebook or any other social media ground.
They follow different news providing accounts and feed themselves with the news they are interested in knowing about. So, social media is a new way of delivering news information to audiences
SOCIAL MEDIA AS THE SOURCE OF NEWS
What is social Media-
Social media is a collective term for websites and applications which focus on communication, community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media.
Importance of social media-
For starters, social media allows you to get your message out to your target audience faster. You can create content and share information immediately, whether it’s a news announcement or video, to catch the eye of a reporter or blogger who’s browsing Twitter or Facebook looking for story ideas.
Sharing & Engagement. Folks are constantly sharing and engaging information across social media, so channels like LinkedIn and Pinterest are useful tools to get the word out to more people and engage with your target audience.
Cost-Effective. Social media offers a cost-effective approach that can help dramatically increase both visibility and brand awareness.
Three major ways, social media is changing journalism-
Faster
News travels fast, but social media ensures that news travels at lightning-speed. Thanks to services like Twitter and Facebook—and the ability to publish news online at any time of day—the old practice of submitting a story for the morning’s newspaper is all but dead. When news breaks, journalists are expected to cover it. Immediately. And social media plays a big role, because you can now publish bits of news to your followers as soon as it’s available, so you don’t have to wait for the full story to start sharing the news.
Clicker
Digital journalism is heavily dependent on advertising, and that means readers, or as they say in the internet age, “clicks.” Social networks, particularly Facebook, can be major traffic drivers for publications looking for free online distribution. In Facebook’s case, the company uses a software algorithm to determine which articles get the most distribution, and there are certain things publishers can do to help their cause. Recently Facebook has prioritized posts that include videos, particularly livestreamed videos. It has also prioritized stories that publications publish directly to the network—that means that the stories are hosted on Facebook so that users aren’t clicking to head off to other websites. You may be thinking, well this doesn’t generate any clicks. True, but Facebook is advertising alongside these articles and sharing that advertising revenue with the publishers as incentive.
More Personal
Social media, especially Twitter, has given journalists the chance to build a public profile that would have been extremely difficult (if not impossible) to build even 10 years ago. Twitter and Facebook allow journalists to weigh in on topics as they unfold, and the virality of social media means those comments can reach readers well outside of their industry or geography. As a journalist, having a social profile allows readers to put a face to a name, and lets them get to know you on a more personal level. The hope is that this following will enjoy your work, not just the work of your publication, and then follow you as you move along in your career. (The downside of this personalization: Social media also makes it easier for unhappy readers to reach journalists they disagree with or don’t like; female journalists in particular can be the target of aggressive harassment.)
An evaluative study of social media as a source of news-
Abstract-
Journalism is an established profession in the society across the globe. With the sudden increase in social media technologies in last few years, the nature of Journalism practice has been significantly influenced. Due to added value of social media traditional journalists have consciously embraced this technology for delivering and promoting their work. Enormous literature is available on impact of social media to journalism practices leading to various perspectives. Yet least qualitative studies are available on the perception of journalism practitioners on their professional interaction with social media. The study is an attempt in this direction to find out the professional impact of social media and the active role being played by the journalism practitioners to embrace the technology. It also attempts to find an answer to that whether the advancement of social media technologies in journalism practice is interference or professional advancement.
Introduction
The emergence of new media technologies in recent years has changed the face of journalism practice. “Each new development in the world of journalism seems to change the way the consumers receive their information and each new development in journalism lead to a decline in one form of media consumption and a spike in consumption of another form”. “Journalism is experiencing considerable changes linked to social, cultural, economic, and technological transformations”. Social media is an extension of Right to Freedom of expression in a virtual world. Social media has brought new characteristics like interactive dialog and social interaction which can be used by the Journalists for real conversations with their audience. “In the 2017 Global Social Journalism Study, 75 percent of journalists describe social media as completely or to a large extent necessary to promote and distribute content. News organizations have also started adopting social networks for sharing news and information with the decline of circulation of print copies of newspapers.
Social media platforms-
1. Social networking
Social networking platforms are informal means of communication to discover people with similar interests and connect virtually. They can be in the form of social websites or applications. According to Boyd and Ellison social network sites can be considered as web-based services where individuals can (1) create a public or semi-public profile (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system but the nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.
Examples: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and LinkedIn.
2. Blogging (using publishing websites)
Blogging is a personal online virtual diary to record ideas, stories, articles and many more things.
Examples: WordPress, Blogger.
3. Managing multiple social media platforms
An aggregator is a tool that can be used to “aggregate social media site feeds in one spot, allowing users to search by keywords.”31
Examples: Hootsuite
Conclusion-
The advent of social media has offered news organizations an enormous potential to market their contents, wider-reach and frame brand image. Either in the form of conversations or newspaper clippings, social interaction has remained a viable source for dissemination of news. However, this form of interaction has become virtual under the impact of social media and extended the news coverage. The significance of social media lies in proper understanding and adoption of various tools. The way social media is reshaping journalism, journalists have positively adopted the change and performing their duties more efficiently in keeping people abreast of recent developments.
EXAMPLES
The U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports teens between the ages of 8 and 28 to spend about 44.5 hours a week in front of a digital screen, according to another report 23 per cent of kids have reported that they feel that they are addicted to video games.
(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/lifecrunch/harmful-impact-of-the-internet-on-children-27202/)
Fake news
SSR CASE
on the internet, specifically on YouTube and Facebook, along with Twitter serious vectors of misinformation related to the case, with little signs were viral. this led to mass gloominess.
Powerful sections of the electronic media have built up mass hysteria around actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death and almost succeeded in turning the narrative of a government failing its people into one in which the government pursues a morally suspect elite.
(https://www.google.com/amp/s/frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/media-overkill/article32648375.ece/amp/)
During election times
(India)
During the 2019 elections, large public Facebook groups became fake news farms — with fake quotes, photoshopped tweets and other unverifiable information. In many ways, they mirror WhatsApp groups, but multiple times the number of users that can be accommodated in a group, going up to the thousands and the millions.
(https://amp.scroll.in/article/927651/in-charts-was-the-influence-of-social-media-on-the-2019-lok-sabha-election-exaggerated)
(Outside India)
Donald Trump posted misleading statements about the election on Facebook and Twitter, following months of signalling his unfounded doubts about expanded mail-in voting and his desire for final election results when polls closed on Nov. Ahead of the election, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube promised to clamp down on election misinformation, including unsubstantiated charges of fraud and premature declarations of victory by candidates. And they mostly did just that — though not without a few hiccups.
But overall, their measures still didn’t really address the problems exposed by the 2020 U.S. presidential contest, critics of the social platforms contend.
Misinformation spread via Instagram, Facebook regarding 2020 US presidential elections was widely and positively criticised by Instagram influencers. e.g., selena gomez, ariana grande, etc.
(https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/international/us-capitol-riots-youtube-removes-several-videos-posted-on-trump-s-channel-121010800052_1.html)
Other:
YouTube has removed several videos that US President Donald Trump has posted on his channel and warned that any channel found to be posting three times within 90 days with false claims on US election results will be permanently removed from the Google-owned video platform.
The move comes in the wake of the unprecedented storming of the US Capitol by Trump's supporters on Wednesday and thus disrupting the constitutional process of counting and certification of the Electoral College votes of the presidential elections. Four people, including a woman, died in the clashes between protesters and police.
(https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/international/us-capitol-riots-youtube-removes-several-videos-posted-on-trump-s-channel-121010800052_1.html)
Riots:
(India)
Kisan Andolan
"Misinformation is being spread that farmers won't get right prices. They are forgetting how aware the country's farmers are," said PM Modi a day after key ally Akali Dal pulled out their only minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal from his government. Akali Dal termed the bills 'anti-farmer'. Spreading of misinformation here led to farmers protest which is still going on from late November.
(https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/farmers-being-misled-over-agriculture-bills-says-modi/article32639110.ece)
POSITIVE EFFECTS
The 2008 Presidential election in the United States is widely seen as the first-time social media played a big part in politics. Candidate Barack Obama’s skilful use of platforms such as Facebook helped him emerge as a winner.
A user on twitter posted how he has given up and was going to commit suicide. The internet did its thing, found his contact, reached out to him and his family, provided support and saved a life.
A girl who was thrown out of her house because she was Lesbian and her parents didn't accept her, started a gofundme campaign to help her complete studies and get into college and posted about it on internet hopin that people would help, people read her story and amplified it, making media houses pick it and spread it further due to which even celebs like Taylor Swift donated to her campaign.
Social media helps in spreading and amplifying creative minds and their harsh root projects. During lockdown, many celebs promoted indie brands and businesses started by those in need in hope of boosting their sales.
Baba ka Dhaba is a prime example of how Social media and internet can change a life. A vlogger captured the plight of an old and poor couple whose roadside stall was not making money during lockdown and whole Country came out to support them through various means. Their story was also promoted by various news channels. The pair now own a restaurant and are well enough now.
Use of internet has also made the job easier for journalists who can now easily pull put data and information from official websites and platforms instead of going to the office and waiting for hours to get information. For example, earlier journalists used to go to revenue dept offices to get data now they can get from their official websites. Sports journalists now need not sit through the whole match, they can get scores and highlights from websites like Cricbuzz who post live scores and commentary.
CONCLUSION
Internet is one of the best things ever invented in humanity. The number of things you can do over the internet is extremely phenomenal. It is an absolute great tool to learn and communicate in just a click of a mouse. Its unrestricted accessibility, however, creates apprehension to young people who can access to it. Internet can expose these young minds to harmful uncensored videos or images that can cause various psychological influences; and over usage of computer can also lead to different kinds of physical and cognitive health problems. Internet can be really helpful and entertaining, but for those who do not know how to control it will just experience its harm and dark side.
The internet's impact on our social live though is not as easy to quantify. For extroverts it can boost communications, even to unhealthy levels, and trivialize or in person interactions. While for introverts it can be a saving grace. Especially for people with social anxiety and other similar disorders, online communication can be a powerful tool to both develop communication skills, and become more comfortable with social interactions. Because of this we must say that the overall impact of the internet on our social lives has also been positive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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