News and social mediaFrom platform relationship standpoint

Reconfirming schedules• Video story storyboard and script due this week. • Approval needed for video story.• Video story project is due April 23 Thursday. • Print story due April 28 Thursday• Class presentation participation mandatory. • Website should be complete and published by May 3. For the website

start writing introduction, bio, resume, captions

In the final stage of this course we explore platform relationship. • A short discussion presentation about a digital platform. -Describe the platform-Assess strength and weakness-Show examples how they are used for news, comment and critique. -Showcase your work on your website• Suggested topics are:-News & Snapchat-News & Virtual reality-News & Drones-News & Twitter, Facebook-News & Periscope-News & Instagram, Pinterest-News & Wearables (Google glass)

Platform relationship & distributed content• Now the news media increasingly

depends on social platforms like Facebook, where billions of people discover news to read and videos to watch. • Social media platforms are equally

interested in the media business.• But different platforms have

different audience and type of news exposure.

News use varies across platforms• Roughly half of both Facebook and

Twitter users get news on those sites. On YouTube, that is true of only one-fifth of its user base, and for LinkedIn, the number is even smaller.

Social Media as a Pathway to News• Roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults

use Facebook, and half of those users get news there—amounting to 30% of the general population.

• YouTube has the next greatest reach in terms of general usage, at 51% of U.S. adults. Thus, even though only a fifth of its users get news there, that amounts to 10% of the adult.

• Twitter reaches just 16% of U.S. adults, but half (8% of U.S. adults) use it for news.

• Reddit is a news destination for nearly two-thirds of its users (62%).

Getting News from Multiple Platforms• For those who get news on

multiple social networking sites, Facebook is likely to be one of the ones they use. More than half of adults who get news on Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube also get news on Facebook. • Aside from that, the shared

audience between these sites is relatively small.

Demographics of social news consumers• LinkedIn news consumers stand

out from other groups as more likely to be high earners and college educated. • Twitter news consumers are

significantly younger than news consumers on Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn. • And Facebook news consumers

are significantly more likely to be female.

Twitter in trouble, why?

• Twitter’s user growth has clearly started to slow down, and that continues to hurt the business. • The company lowered its

expectations for the current quarter, sending its stock down as much as 12 percent.• User growth is clearly an issue.

Twitter now has 320 million monthly active users, up just four million over the last quarter.

Growth has stopped. • Twitter doesn't enjoy the same

mass-market appeal of Facebook, which has more than four times as many users. Facebook has around 1.5 billion users.• Just announced 8 percent

layoffs.• Expect more trouble because of

new startup social media.

Why? Here are the reason that pundits say.(Based on article from Timothy B. Lee, Vox, oct. 27, 2015) • Twitter's strengths — and also its weaknesses — come from the fact that

tweets in a user's timeline are displayed in strictly chronological order. And it’s content is restricted to 140 characters.

1. No proprietary algorithm. Does not select or highlight information that I and my network care about. Focuses on recency. This is fit for heavy users like professional communicators such as journalists, activists, campaign professionals, or Donald Trump. But not for casual users.

2. Limitation on content control. The reason for 140 character is speed. But speed does

3. Are there any other reasons? Frankly they don’t know for sure.

What do you think?• What is the difference between Twitter and Facebook from the user’s

standpoint?• What remedy would you propose to Twitter?• What do you think is the future of social media?• What is the contribution of social media to society?

Ambiguous definition of social media

• What is social media?-It is a comprehensive term that includes a number of different media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest…, sometimes called Social Networking Sites (SNS). • Following Boyd and Ellison (2007), we define online social network sites

as “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (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.”(Ellison, 2007)• But are they the same type of media?

Social media v. Mass media, interpersonal communication. • Interpersonal and mass (mediated) communication• In the early twentieth century and after World War I, people thought mass

media message will immediately get to people’s attitude and behavior and change them. It was called the bullet theory or hypodermic needle theory.• But empirical analysis did not support it. • On the contrary, interpersonal communication and networks mattered

more. It is called the Two step flow theory, because the influence of mass media is channeled through opinion leaders and their network of influence. • Where does social media stand?

It is still true that interpersonal communication has the strongest effect of people. • Proximity(vs. Anonymity): You know whom you are talking to. • Reciprocity: You can always talk back. • Content control: visual and audio at the same time. These three elements were called interactivity.

*But it has the limitation of time and space. So the communication technology has focused on transcending those barriers. *But the revolution of mass media was a trade-off of interactivity.

Twitter and Facebook, are they the same media?• Twitter, as its focus seems to be on the sharing of opinion and

information rather than on reciprocal social interaction.• Users do not need to post information about themselves to find

‘friends’ and thus the site focuses less on ‘who you are’ and more on what you have to say.• Twitter is less reciprocal. There is a clear difference between those

who disseminate information (followed) and those who receive it (follower).

It is found that users such as celebrities and media representatives which is 0.05% of the population generate 50% of URLs consumed.

Different effects in many aspects• Much cited article by Yoo found that Facebook and Twitter had

different political effects in many aspects. • Conventionally, the advertisement market values Facebook

communication higher than Twitter. Eventbrite calculated that every time someone shares a link about an upcoming event, Facebook generates sales of 2.52 dollars and Twitter 0.34 dollars (Kwak et al., 2010). • It is said that Facebook is like a dinner table and twitter is like a party

talk.

• Twitter specialized in diffusion speed and mobility (Farhi, 2009). The 140-character message length made Twitter the first web service to break free of PCs (Arthur, 2011). Studies show compromised proximity and content control for the sake of mobility.• Is the social media evolving towards more interactive form of media

platform that is similar to interpersonal communication?• In the 1990s the most interactive form of digital media was blog.

Proposed presentation questions

• What do you think that caused Twitter’s trouble (no net increase in users)? What do you think is its solution? • What do you think is the difference between Facebook and

Twitter?• What is the future of social media? Give your prospect about the

evolution of social media.• Give your assessment on the relationship between use of social

media and news among young adults. Or, the relationship between social media use and political participation among young adults?