I have decided to compare old media (mass media such as newspapers and television) to the “new kind” (different social medias as Wikipedia, YouTube or blogs). I think that it is important to note that the older generations (over 50 years old) don’t seem at all interested in these features – it is mainly a phenomenon for the young (except for maybe Carl Bildt). A lot of older people I have talked to can’t even imagine why someone would want to write a blog and even less why someone would want to read one. So I think that the first thing to note here is that social media is almost exclusively for the young.
This is important to remember when discussing credibility issues and such, because it seems that it is the young who is the most negative towards the old media. In another course I took they had invited a sociologist who had studied the habit of Swedish teenagers and her conclusion was that the two institutions the young trusted the least was the school (teachers) and the media (journalists). I find that a bit scary, don’t you?
The big difference between finding information on a random blog and in a newspaper isn’t the content per se. No, the real difference is accountability. If a journalist has written something that is wrong or no suiting there is a publisher who will take responsibility for that. Hence the threshold is much higher in established media. The old media also has reputation to think about, since they actually have a brand to nourish. Therefore the old media providers have something to lose if they publish information that later turned out to be untrue. So, now we have identified two major differences between old and new media, accountability and credibility, but there is one last aspect that needs to be taken under consideration – the one of agenda. When it comes to old media most of us know – and if we don’t it is quite easy to find out – what the brands represent (for instance SVT is un-biased, DN is liberal and so on), but there is no equivalence when it comes to blogs. You have no idea what the writer’s agenda is and therefore it makes it hard top value the information that he or she supplies.
Lastly there is one thing I would also like to point out. That is that the anonymity of the web is spreading to traditional media. We see “sources” and “informants” without names almost daily nowadays and I think that is a way for the old media to try to keep up with the faster moving web. In my point of view this isn’t something good. I think that it compromises the three aspects mentioned above and makes the difference between old and new media fuzzy.
By: Johan Östberg
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I liked your essay Johan, and I think there are some issues we can discuss tomorrow in seminar.
About the young generation that you believe that they are the only social media users. I agree but I think the internet users are growing among the old people as the time passes because the previous young generations are getting older and now we can say the people under 40 year old are heavy internet users (at least in Western societies) so this shift in age will be broader during next 10 years (when the heavy users will be under 50) and then we can say at least 80% of the active part of the society are the consumers of new social media. With this point of view, considering the quality issues or other related problems would be crucial nowadays to be solved sooner.
About the sociological surveys that you said, it was really amazing and reminded me The Wall(Pink Floyd) when we dont trust our teachers or mentors and want to hear or see what our peers believe or do. Here is the potential of social media as a good market to focus on.
I like your idea about branding issues in traditional media and agenda setting in those media, but I think those kind of agenda setting cannot be performed in new social media because we can easily understand it by following their blogs for instance in a short period of time, because agenda setting is a very elaborate task and always it is done in an imperceptible way and by a team which are under supervision of special lobby, but for a blogger or some normal people, it is not an easy task. dont you think so?
Nice essay，Johan.And also nice comment by Homayoon.
In the age issue, I am quite on Homayoon's side. Well, it's true that young people use much more social media than old people. But one example is that Obama also use social media a lot during election. (but the trick is he want to attract young people.) I don't think the young people is the "real" social media content creator. Because most of the blogger which have some influence might around 40 years old. And also when I talk to my young sister about writing a blog, she consider it's old fashion, only old people will do that.
The active social media user's age may be a issue for discussion.
Very clear discussion, especially accountability and credibility part.
Good essay. I think that you found some important aspects of old media that differentiate it from the new social media.
But I think that as blogs and other kinds of social media grow and get bigger, that the owners or users of these will start to adopt some of these three differentiating aspects of old media.
That as a i.e. a blog gets larger in size of readership so must the owner/writer maintain credibility to be able to keep or enlarge his readers. The blog will become as a brand and the owner must nourish that that in order to be able to make it bigger.
Therefore the these social media also will have something to loose if their blog is set up to be a source of trustworthy information or truth.
But it is still true that since everything is on the internet so will nobody be accountable for if something is incorrect and we will never for sure now their real agenda.
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