How much of the news you read do you get off of social media? It is no surprise that according to a research study half of Facebook and Twitter users get news on those sites, but is this on purpose or do visitors just happen to stumble across news while browsing?
Studies show that Facebook users are in fact on the site for other reasons and happen to stumble across news by chance and most of the news the viewer receives is not coming from a news source but from a friend sharing the news. The controversy about relying on social media for your news is that you may be getting skewed news stories with Entertainment news taking up 73% of the new topics on Facebook with people & events in my community coming in second at 65%.
On the other side of the coin many people enjoy getting their news from social media sites because it gives them the opportunity to interact with the news by sharing stories, commenting on posts, liking news stories, etc. It has also been found that individuals interact with the news stories at higher rates if they receive the news through a social media site rather than the news website itself.
With social media surpassing newspapers and equaling TV as the primary source of news how do you think the instant access is affecting the news stories? Is it most important these days to get the story right or to get it up on social media regardless of some flaws in information?
Matsa, Katerine, and Amy Mitchell. “8 Key Takeaways about Social Media and News.” Pew Research Centers Journalism Project RSS. N.p., 26 Mar. 2014. Web. 21 Aug. 2014.
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