Why Less is Sometimes More

The internet’s ever-expanding capabilities has revolutionized virtually every traditional practice used by journalists to publish and distribute pressing news stories, making environmental news more intuitive and plentiful. Social media has created a limitless age of news that can be adapted to its readers, making news more effective, and giving journalists and arsenal of tools and methods to utilize in their attempt to create attractive news. According to Bob Wyss, author of Covering the Environment (2008), a merge of citizen science and journalism has allowed individuals to better collaborate and make science a more interactive process for everyday people. With the ability to report personal observations and have a conversation on local issues, readers can better visualize the changes going on around them. With such swift changes in news platforms, social media has become the forefront of timely and widespread news distribution. As pointed out by Wyss, social media is one of the few things that crosses all generations of people and all expanses of physical space (2008,199). This allows news to be accessible while people enjoy social media and connect with friends and family. As the American working class works more and more hours, it becomes increasingly less of a priority for people to take time out of their day and read the news, especially when it is a separate feat all on its own. By incorporating news in to social media apps, people can enjoy their social media content while also having access to current news all in the same moment, giving journalists more opportunities to put news in front of their readers. However, is this always better? Is more news always a good thing?

With more news in more places, its organization has naturally gotten greater. As Wyss delves into the massive changes that have resulted from the digital revolution, he points out how electronic news has allowed “aggregation” to take place; the process of collecting and ordering news in a certain way for the reader (2008, 199). This allows readers and website users to interact with specific topics or content that they are interested in, allowing impassioned readers to better target their news consumption, as opposed to before the age of electronic media in which you had little control over what news was in what place. Aggregation allows for more targeted news consumption allowing easier and faster access. While most news that is aggregated is not original, it is another level of security keeping false news from consumers, as it helps to sift through fact and fiction.

Along with these changes has come multimedia platforms: audio, video, and photography. These tools have allowed journalist to portray messages more effectively than their written counterparts. What better way to capture an Instagram user’s attention than with an attention-grabbing picture, rather than a chink of text. Audio and visual combinations have allowed a more encompassing experience for consumers and allows journalists to have a better lasting and more memorable affect as a result of their work. Graphics and illustrations are also mentioned by Wyss and can be made to allow the reader to interact with the media creating a more interactive experience. As discussed by Nicole Martin of Forbes in her piece “How Social Media has Changed How We Consume News,” social media is the first news outlet to hit most users (2018). With more of a presence comes more of a responsibility in the case of social media news, leading to various concerns surrounding what news is shown and for how long. Social media sites can control what news content is shown, therefore creating automatic bias in journalism. The length of time users interact with said content is often limited as well, making news articles that are present open to misinterpretation.   As the presence of social media news increases, so does the responsibility of journalists and news networks to keep their readers interested and their content available and unbiased.

Sources:

Martin, N. (2018, November 30). How Social Media Has Changed How We Consume News. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolemartin1/2018/11/30/how-social-media-has-changed-how-we-consume-news/#6d1bf6ff3c3c

Wyss, Bob. Covering the environment: How journalists work the green beat. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.