Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lottie Brooks
CDM 4010W-01
Jon Bruning
Abstract
This essay looks at the ways in which social media encourages news consumption and
participation through examination of changing news sources, ways in which online news spreads,
creating personalized news streams, and what the offline impact is of consumption of news
through social media. Currently, Americans are consuming news through an average of 3.8
sources, and millennials turn to social media first. When it comes to the more traditional sources
for news, such as TV, the stats are different. Fully 85% of adults over the age of 65 primarily get
their news from TV, only 27% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 do. Despite the decline
in use of traditional news sources, 85% of millennials think it’s important to keep up with news.
News spreads differently online than it does through traditional media, through differentiating
themselves, and creating positive content that encourages their audience to further discuss
information and share it with their networks. Though many are concerned about the ability to
personalize a news stream, 86% of millennials report that their feeds are comprised of diverse
opinions, not just those of their own. News organizations are adapting to this shift, and
encouraging millennials to get involved with the news offline, too. Digital activism, awareness of
which is spread through news-based social media content, is helping to mobilize thousands of
supporters to multiple causes. The common meaning of news is changing, and news and social
media are merging into an essential tool to integrate news into daily life.
I. Introduction
In a modern world of liking, sharing, and reposting content, many are concerned that
traditional news sources that fail to adjust to the shift and move toward more online-focused
content create a ripple effect, where the younger generation becomes newsless. Though the
general impression of the millennial generation is that they are uninformed and heedless of
current events due to their heavy reliance on online media, research has shown that the opposite
is true. The growth of social media may not inhibit, but rather encourage, growth of news
awareness. This theory can be validated by looking at the migration toward online news, the way
various social media sites compare to one another in terms of their news value, participation in
and arrival to news on social media, comparisons between traditional news sources and the new
model, and what this shift could mean. Exploring these categories of social media-based news
reveals the growth of news awareness, and the disconnect between the perception of millennials
as a news-ignorant generation, and the reality that they do, in fact, access news on a regular
basis.
News has evidently evolved from the days of a town crier, and it is seamlessly integrated
into daily life now more than ever. Consequently, more than half of Americans are using
anywhere between three to five methods of news discovery, with an average statistic of 3.8
sources to discover news in one week (“How Americans Get Their News”, 2014). TV news is
still the most widely-used platform, with 57% of American adults often obtaining their news
there (Mitchell et al., 2016). Although this may be true, TV only comprises one of those sources
that over half of Americans use on a daily basis to obtain their news. Other popular sources for
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 2
finding news are still newspaper and radio, but a newer addition, and the leading contender
among younger demographics, is the internet (Mitchell et al., 2016). The driving force behind the
The reach of social media is no secret; as of 2011, Facebook was the second-most visited
online site, outdone only by Google in world and United States rankings (Zúñiga et al., 2012). In
a world shifting toward online sharing, there are increased apprehensions among the older
generations about the future of news, which go hand-in-hand with generally increased
assumptions that millennials engage with less news than their elders do; these concerns,
however, are directly contradicted by research (Circonciso, 2016). Much of the unease regarding
a decrease in news consumption is a result of data which shows that adults between the ages of
18 and 34, commonly referred to as millennials, are not visiting news sites, reading print
newspapers, or watching television news in mass quantities (“How Millennials Get News”,
2015). Furthermore, as of 2016, receiving news from print newspapers had fallen 7%, from 27%
to just two of every ten Americans (Mitchell et al., 2016). Only 5% of millennials often get news
from print news sources, compared to almost half of those who are 65 and older (Mitchell et al.,
2016). One of the most pronounced differences is between those that prefer mobile devices for
digital news, at a striking 70% of millennials compared to just 16% of those over 65 years old
(Mitchell et al., 2016). Again, although over half of U.S. adults often get news from TV, there is
a key difference between the 72% of those between the ages of 50 and 64 who claim to often get
news from TV, and the 85% of those older than 65 who often get TV-based news, in comparison
to the only 27% of adults between the ages of 18 to 29 who often get their news on TV (“How
Americans Get Their News”, 2014). Researchers have found, therefore, that the decrease is not
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 3
in news consumption, just in the use of the aforementioned traditional methods to stay informed;
the world is moving online, and millennials and their news are moving with it.
Taking a look at Figure 1, the trend seems to show that the older a recipient of news is,
the more likely they are to rely on traditional news sources, as compared to those that grew up
with the internet; television is still the primary source of news for 51% of people over the age of
55 (Dunn, 2017). In comparison, digital outlets serve as the primary news source for the majority
of people under 35, with 64% of those respondents being between the ages of 18 and 24 (Dunn,
2017). Traditional news media is still a key source of news for Americans as a whole. As
evidenced by the fact that those that use multiple internet-enabled devices are not necessarily less
likely to use print publications for finding their news (“How Americans Get Their News”, 2014).
However, the figure and trends clearly demonstrate the decline in the use of newer news sources
among the older generations, and the inclination toward digital media-based news in younger age
groups.
In fact, considering this in partnership with the fact that younger people spend significant
time using digital media, the 2010 Pew report says that millennials are on track to become the
most educated generation in history (Circonciso, 2016). While other factors may play into their
education, news exposure and access is a key factor; 69% of millennials get news at least once a
day, 45% regularly follow five or more “hard news” topics, and 85% say that keeping up with
the news is at least somewhat important to them (“How Millennials Get News”, 2015). In
general, hard news refers to serious news regarding politics, foreign affairs, etc., in comparison
to routine news like human interest stories. Despite general public opinion, then, almost half of
all millennials are following multiple news stories on a daily basis. Plus, with almost seven of
every ten millennials consuming at least one news story every day it is hard to ignore the
attention news can garner by being present on social media, particularly among the younger
generation.
Though almost all social media sites are still actively used, not all sites compete for news
viewers’ time equally. Facebook is the news powerhouse among the social media sites, with 64%
of U.S. adults using the site, and half of those users obtaining news there; which means
approximately 30% of the U.S. adult population is getting at least some news from Facebook
(Anderson & Caumont, 2014). Perhaps surprisingly, YouTube is the next biggest social news
site; around half of Americans are users, and a fifth of them get news from it, translating to 10%
of the American population (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). Twitter is about equal to this, since
about 8% of Americans say they receive news there, with 16% of the population as users, and
half of those falling into the news recipient category (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). Reddit is an
outlier in this data set, since despite only reaching 3% of the U.S. population, over 62% of those
users have received news from the site (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). These data refer to
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 5
Americans in general, though. Research has found that the numbers are slightly different among
the millennial population. Despite less usage among millennials, Facebook is still the leader, but
the percentage is much higher, with 88% of millennials getting at least some news there (“How
Millennials Get News”, 2015). Closely followed by YouTube as the runner up, also with a
significantly higher percentage of 83% of millennials receiving news there (“How Millennials
Get News”, 2015). Twitter is far more notable than a mere 8% when it comes to the millennial
category, with fully one third of millennials obtaining news from the site (“How Millennials Get
News”, 2015).
No matter which social media site prevails as the powerhouse over time, the usage of
social media to participate in news is comparable across all sites. According to the research of
“Katz and Gurevitch’s (1974) classic typology, individuals use media for surveillance, personal
identity construction, social relationships, and entertainment”; news, of course, can fulfill
multiple of these requirements (Zúñiga et al., 2012). Naturally, then, it makes sense that two
thirds of respondents to a survey of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 taken by the Media
Insight Project from the Associated Press in 2015 said they consume their news regularly via an
online medium (Irvine, 2016). If news recipients can use those stories to survey, construct their
personal identity, entertain themselves, and form social relationships with others who are
discussing the news, it would be clear that younger generations who are already frequently
online (various sources estimate anywhere from 9 to 18 hours a day) would engage in news
stories as part of their normal feeds for all of these reasons. As the surveillance, personal identity
participation in or actions with online news. Younger millennials do not seek their news from a
single source, but instead tend to be impelled by the topic and let news find them, in comparison
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 6
to older millennials, who more actively seek news (Circonciso, 2016). This ties back to the idea
that the collaboration of social media and news highly encourages millennial awareness of
current events; they receive news passively while online that they may never have sought out. A
total of 60% of online news intake is passive, where the user comes across the news while
scrolling or browsing rather than having gone in search of it (Irvine, 2016). Considering young
adults as a whole, data shows that they do tend to get their harder news from more traditional
news sites, and lifestyle news from social networks (Irvine, 2016). This illustrates the notion that
younger millennials more often passively receive news than they do go in search of it.
With that in mind, 40% of news is actively sought; consumers intentionally search and
decide which stories are trustworthy (“How Millennials Get News”, 2015). Interestingly, when it
comes to loyalty to sources and trust in news organizations’ information, and discussion of news
with others, there are no key differences between the millennial age group in comparison to those
older than 50; the only key difference lies in the preference for certain platforms or outlets
(Mitchell et al., 2016). The millennial social media users often decide on credibility and quality
by using a search engine to follow up with what they read on Facebook, in order to gain second
opinions and consult multiple sources (“How Millennials Get News”, 2015). Once they have
decided which stories they favor, they may then continue to participate by “posting news stories,
commenting on them, liking or favoriting them, and forwarding them to others.” (“How
Millennials Get News”, 2015). This act of personally sharing the news is sometimes viewed as
practical, in that millennials don’t just see themselves as news consumers, but also as
survey in 2014, half of social network users have reposted news stories, images, or videos, and
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 7
46% of users have participated in discussion of a news event or issue (Anderson & Caumont,
2014). Additionally, 14% of social media users have posted original photography of news events
to their social network, and 12% have posted videos (Anderson & Caumont, 2014).
Figure 2. Percent of social media users who have done each activity, according to a 2014
survey (Anderson & Caumont, 2014).
The rise of original content surrounding news events on social media shows the climbing rate
of citizen journalism, where anyone and everyone has the right to reveal and discuss news events
as they occur. Although many citizens rely on professional journalists and traditional news
agencies to fact-check or provide background information for stories, with information available
online 24/7 and many diverse opinions on the internet, citizen journalists are becoming more and
more necessary each day (Circonciso, 2016). The question remains unresolved on who is
responsible for ethical maintenance on social media-based citizen journalism, but in the
meantime, citizens share their viewpoints by reposting what they see in their feeds, or creating
In terms of reposting, and the half of social media users that do so, there are clear
characteristics of a story that will lead to it being shared more frequently. Stories tend to be
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 8
shared more often if they are more positive, more informational, more trustworthy, or more
controversial (Kümpel et al., 2015). These, as discussed later on, are slightly different than the
characteristics of the stories that gain traction in offline news media. A significant number of
Americans have a preferred source depending on the type of news they are seeking, with only
18% of news consumers not mentioning a specific reporting source when asked where they go
for any given subject of news (“How Americans Get Their News”, 2014). Research seems to
show that stories are also more likely to be shared when the recipient of a story sees an opinion
leader interact with it before they do; in fact, some scholars believe that much negative news
could be stopped from spreading if opinion leaders were addressed beforehand (Wadbring &
Ödmark, 2016). An opinion leader is someone that influences how others see or view a certain
topic, because of the trust that they have earned in some way from their followers. For example,
among politically engaged social media users, a post from their local congressman would
Though the means are changing for spreading the messages, traditional news organizations
may still be news opinion leaders, even on social media. A survey was conducted online in
March 2018 via Survey Monkey, with results taken from 100 respondents between the ages of 18
and 54, the survey will be referenced throughout, as it included a variety of questions pertaining
to the emphasized topics in this essay. In this survey, 63% of the respondents said they feel that
news organizations that they follow on Twitter or like on Facebook are one of the ways they see
the most news-related information on their feeds. In the same survey, 61% of respondents said
that they feel peers that they follow or are friends with are an important method of their
discovery of news. Their responses are commonplace among many Americans, of whom 63%
“say family and friends are an important way they get news, whether online or offline” (Mitchell
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 9
et al., 2016). Though it is rather early to determine the typical trends of what makes someone a
digital opinion leader, they tend to be younger, information seekers, more highly educated,
technologically advanced, interested in and involved with society and friends, and they tend to
have a positive attitude toward change (Wadbring & Ödmark, 2016). These traits, then, lead
them to gaining a large follower count, or a loyal follower count, that believes in the messages
Additionally, “¾ of [opinion leaders] use social media several days a week, compared to only
1/3 of the majority who would not be considered opinion leaders” (Wadbring & Ödmark, 2016).
Much research suggests that, as previously indicated, influencers or opinion leaders within a
topic or category of news are key to how news continues to spread (Kümpel et al., 2015). Even
though there are more recipients of news than there are seekers, the data is still clear that by
following the opinion leaders, users will discover news whether intentionally or not. In fact, two-
fifths of social network users said that their news comes from the people that they follow on
services like Facebook, compared to a fifth that get news from news organizations or individual
journalists they follow (Hermida et al., 2012). Though most online news site visitors still arrive
directly or via search engine, social media referrals via opinion leaders or peers have transformed
into an essential tool in the spread of news (Kümpel et al., 2015). Opinion leaders that interact
with socially-networked news stories, therefore, impact the circulation of that news. Though
social interaction, such as listening to the opinions of those whom one admires, has always
altered the dissemination and spread of news, social media are becoming key players in the way
people experience their news; “networked media technologies are extending the ability of users
Although 88% of millennials, in a survey of over 1,000 people between the ages of 18 and
34, do regularly receive news on Facebook, only 47% of the participants said that getting news is
a motivation for using Facebook (“How Millennials Get News”, 2015). The other 53%, then,
seek their news via other media; 40% of millennials pay for a news app of some kind, or have a
digital subscription to news through a source that specializes in news summarization (Circonciso,
2016). Though 53% of American adults subscribe to news in some variation, the younger
population within this statistic are motivated to subscribe to news in order to support the news
organization’s mission (“Paying for news”, 2017). Plus, two-thirds of those ages 18-34 that
subscribe to news in some form said that, through use of Facebook several times a day, they
discovered a different or third-party news platform that they later decided to pay for (“Paying for
news”, 2017). One other key reason that people choose to pay for a news publication is due to a
specific topic that the news organization often covers or specializes in (“Paying for news”,
2017). While news subscription providers may be motivated to share certain articles over others
due to third party sponsorship or subscriber preferences, news on social media or other free news
sites spread differently. Their traction is impacted by contextual traits about about the news
articles, and various motivations of followers. Research suggests that where an article is placed
on a page may change the number of shares it gets, and that during times of social or political
crises articles related to the subject see an increase in the number of shares (Kümpel et al., 2015).
Due to millennials’ exceeding familiarity with online media, simplistic characteristics like
placements on a site are key ways through which articles cause themselves to stand out.
current trends, as well as their personal interests, likes, and dislikes (Circonciso, 2016). This
presence of digital nativity, or the idea that the millennial generation grew up with the internet
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 11
and social media, thus making it natural to them, significantly alters their online habits in
comparison to other generations (Circonciso, 2016). In her research on how millennials get news,
Circonciso elaborates on these ideas, and says that millennials tend to not directly consume news
in discrete or individual sessions or by going to news providers, but “instead, news and
information are woven into an often continuous but mindful way that millennials connect to the
world generally, which mixes news with social connection, problem solving, social action, and
entertainment” (Circonciso, 2016). Her research, taken from the Media Insight Project, could
suggest a future trend of news consumption wherein it becomes more of an integrated part of
daily life, and less of an outside entity which one must seek.
While the trend of social media users finding news as part of their feeds on a seemingly
everyday basis increases, it could still be the case that those people are not actually consuming as
much news as those who arrive directly; users that find their news through Facebook spend less
time reading the content and consume less pages than direct-access recipients (Anderson &
Caumont, 2014). This could be due to the fact that on Facebook, or other social media platforms,
seeing any news beyond the headline requires redirecting to a third party site. Fully 30% of the
people who said they recently followed breaking news said that they do not go in depth beyond
the headline (“How Americans Get Their News”, 2014). Contrary to what may be expected,
younger adults are more likely to remember looking for further information on breaking news
than are older adults, where older adults are more likely to say they generally keep up with news
(“How Americans Get Their News”, 2014). Elaborating on this idea, and illustrated in Figure 3,
“visitors who go to a news media website directly spend roughly three times as long as those
who wind up there through search or Facebook, and they view roughly five times as many pages
per month.” (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). This data does not take into account, though, that
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 12
people who read a headline on Facebook may have then followed up with direct access to a site
in order to obtain more information about the event, which, as previously mentioned, they often
do. This could also account for the time spent on directly accessed news sites, as millennials or
others further discover news about a story that caught their attention on social media.
Figure 3: Average Monthly Referral Traffic to News Sites, based on data taken by the Pew
Research Center (Anderson & Caumont, 2014).
Regardless of the impact of time spent on the platform, as users shift toward social media to
gain their news updates, the inherent differences between their traditional news sources and
social media will cause a disconnect in the set of news stories they receive via each medium,
based on current trends. As previously mentioned, the news that gets shared more on social
media tends to be more positive and/or more controversial, in comparison to offline news, which
tends to be more negative (Wadbring & Ödmark, 2016). Another key feature of social media
news in comparison to offline, more traditional, news is that it allows more competition. Smaller
companies can gain traction on their stories through shares or likes with no paid placement,
resulting in traditional news leaders not necessarily being the same producers as social media
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 13
news leaders (Bandari et al., 2012). This can allow equal access to various opinions, rather than
simply the opinion with the biggest budget, as is the case with offline news.
In addition to being liked and shared, popularity of news stories across social media may also
be topic-driven. As shown in Figure 4, Facebook users most often see entertainment news, or
news about people and events in their own community (Anderson & Caumont, 2014).
Comparatively, Facebook users said they least often see science and technology news, or
business news (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). It may be worth keeping in mind, though, that this
could be seen as equivalent to reading a newspaper, where science and business each have their
own, smaller, section of the paper, and the front page headlines are usually driven by
entertainment value.
Although entertainment is the clear leader of news topics found on Facebook, the Associated
Press institute, in their research on How Millennials Get News, describes the fact that millennials
Virtually all Millennials, for instance, regularly consume a mix of hard news, lifestyle news,
and practical “news you can use,” the study finds. Millennials are more likely to report
following politics, crime, technology, their local community, and social issues than report
following popup culture and celebrities, or style and fashion (2015).
Even so, it seems that that millennials’ tendency to follow multiple topics across multiple
platforms is not yet representative of the majority of social media news-seekers. In the
aforementioned Carthage survey of 100 people taken in 2018 from various age groups and
countries, there was a significant difference in popularity of the types of news that people said
they are more likely to share than others. A full 78% of respondents said they would share news
they are passionate about, 64% said they would repost news relating to a local event, and 59%
said they would repost news related to their career or projected career. On the other hand, only
nine respondents said they would be likely to share news that contradicts their personal opinions
or values, and only 26% of participants said they would share entertainment news. Some
respondents commented that they only share news stories that are not controversial, since they
With 73% of Facebook users total regularly consuming entertainment news, that is, by
far, Facebook’s leading type of news; Twitter, however, serves a core function of distribution of
news as it breaks (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). This difference is likely due to the mechanics
behind the site. Twitter’s algorithm makes their feed chronological, in comparison to Facebook
which caters to one’s preferred content, and the retweet mechanism allows an easy and public
With the chronologically-ordered short tweets, breaking news comes in in easily understandable,
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 15
paraphrased descriptions, in a public forum (Sharma, 2017). Twitter largely overtakes Facebook
in the breaking news category, with a mere 28% of Facebook users keeping up with a developing
news story via the site, and less than half of that would follow breaking news by turning to
Facebook as their primary source (Anderson & Caumont, 2014). Whatever the platform, people
are consciously selecting specific forms of social media through which to obtain their news,
Topics aside, the ability of the social media platforms to reach a significant number of
people does result in atypical consumers of news, especially with the help of the two-way
communication that social media allows (Stassen, 2011). This means that, rather than simply
social media allows for transactional communication, and discourse over the matter.
Transactional commentary and sharing of news could be beneficial or harmful, depending on the
additional commentary shared with the article. Nonetheless, social media’s allowance of
conversations surrounding the news is transforming into a key factor in the sharing of and
reflection on news. Researcher Stassen, who looks at social media in terms of its value to
journalism, even goes so far as to say that “the old media model is smashed”, as she believes in
the future of social media as a valid and primary source for news (Stassen, 2011). It would also
be feasible to suggest that the two-way communication facilitation of social media sites does not
just increase “the acquisition of information, but also the discussion of its importance and
relevance with other members of a particular individual’s social network”, which can allow users
to discuss, elaborate on, further reflect on, or understand their news in a public forum (Zúñiga et
al., 2012). In the Carthage College 2018 survey of participants 18-53, most of whom were
college students, 38% of them said that they occasionally or often react to or comment on posts
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 16
surrounding news events that contradict their personal opinions, and 80% of them said they
occasionally or often like or comment on posts surrounding news events that agree with their
personal opinions. Although this may be true, people still overwhelmingly get news from each
other in person or over the phone; on average, people who received news online then spoke
about it with someone else 30% of the time, which was more frequently than they then posted
about it on social media (Mitchell et al., 2016). However, there re still those that turn to social
media to share a news story. Additionally, despite the fact that most of the information that is
news are incorporated into daily life for more people, the content available on those social
networks inherently diversifies with the increased number of contributors (Zúñiga et al., 2012).
In the eyes of those that are opposed to the idea of using social media to obtain news, the
commentary and sharing is actually one key cause of their opposition. Many of these individuals
feel that way because of the aforementioned “personalized news streams” that users have the
ability to create on these platforms. The concern with this stems from users’ potential to, even if
accidentally, create a news feed that lends itself to some degree of confirmation bias, wherein
one seeks out information that agrees with their pre-existing opinions or beliefs. However, in the
previously mentioned survey of 100 people, 83% of them said that they never or only
occasionally unfollow or hide information from people that regularly post opinionated news that
is different from their own opinions, such as someone that believed strongly in gun control
muting or unfollowing someone that regularly posts or shares news about their second
amendment rights. This would be a very easy way to potentially avoid being presented with
diverse opinions, but 70% of millennials say that their social media feeds are a fairly even mix of
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 17
opinions both similar to and different from their own, and another 16% of respondents say that
their feeds contain views that are mostly different than their personal perspectives (“How
Millennials Get News”, 2015). Additionally, 73% of those who are exposed to viewpoints other
than their own claim they investigate others’ opinions “at least some of the time”, with a quarter
of them saying they often do (“How Millennials Get News”, 2015). That knowledge, paired with
the fact that 86% of millennials see diverse opinions through social media, shows that, despite
concerns of creating bias, that as social media grows, so does diverse news awareness.
Furthermore, the original claim of the ability to create personalized streams being a reason to use
traditional sources rather than social media in order to obtain news may be unfounded. It seems
that, even in traditional news such as TV and newspaper, there are clear front runners for each
political ideology. Those who self-identify as more liberal are far more likely to turn to news
from CNN, PBS, or the BBC than are those who self-identify as conservative, who prefer to
listen to and trust news from Fox (Mitchell et al., 2014). Interestingly, the more conservative the
survey respondent, the less news sources they deemed trustworthy; Fox news was the only
traditional news source that a majority of conservative respondents said they turn to for
trustworthy news (Mitchell et al., 2014). Though social media news may not result in more trust
in the diverse opinions and viewpoints, it certainly results in more exposure to others’ opinions
The shift away from single-view traditional news toward the more eclectic news that
social media provides does come with a task for the news organizations, and for the platforms on
which they share their information. Due to this, many social media platforms and news
organizations have already adapted to the modern methods involved with news sharing, in light
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 18
of the shift among user preferences for receiving news (Stassen, 2011). This shift is exemplified
by the fact that news organizations that have caught onto the trend are hastily making their way
to social media as a method of distribution (Hermida et al., 2012). Additionally, a visit to any
online source for news shows a myriad of buttons that allow you to share the story to your own
social media platforms, thus encouraging citizen journalism ideology to help with spreading a
story. This may be the new normal as even the current president takes to Twitter multiple times a
day to share significant personal and government news, rather than waiting for the break of a
press release. Additionally, the line between watching and reading news is becoming less
distinct, as frequency, available space, and possibility for moving images all increases with the
capability to post news stories online and on social media (Wadbring & Ödmark, 2016).
Essentially, researchers conclude, the common meaning of news is changing (Wadbring &
Ödmark, 2016).
Aside from the idea of the new normal, and the aforementioned side effects of viewer
engagement shifting to social media, there are also many social or psychological effects of this
shift. Pew research suggests that the psychology of news engagement is shifting, as 20% of
Americans have changed their views on an issue because of something they’ve seen in a news
story or news discussion on social media (Circonciso, 2016). Furthermore, the same article
describes the shift that seems to be prompting more activism and participation among the
millennials that regularly experience news in their social media feeds, and thus, as part of their
daily life:
The mobilized supporters are not just a passing trend, studies show that patterns of media use
intended to acquire information or build community (e.g. news on social media) are positively
correlated with civic participation (Zúñiga et al., 2012). There are also many pages or groups that
people may join in order to hear about ways to be more actively involved, with the additional
capability to create Facebook events and invite specific people that can then share it with their
own networks. A third of respondents to the Carthage College 2018 survey of 100 people said
that they had been to a protest, town hall, or other politically-oriented event that they heard about
exclusively through social media. Obviously, social media is evolving into a news media tool,
through which organizations can interact and communicate with their audiences (Stassen, 2011).
The potential of that interaction alone could facilitate entirely new demographics’ abilities to
stand up for what they believe in. Young people, minorities/non-whites, and people of lower
socioeconomic status will be more inclined to use social media to obtain their news in order to
feel they have a voice in their typically underrepresented demographic; this shift could lead to a
healthier democracy as typically politically-distant citizens are able to become more engaged
With 45% of millennials regularly keeping up with five or more “hard news” topics, 88%
of millennials getting news from Facebook, citizen journalists presenting diverse viewpoints on
stories, unpaid digital opinion leaders forging new trends, and young adults consistently
following up on research for a breaking story, the overall growth of social media platforms
among atypical audiences. Future research would be required to determine the longitudinal
effects on the political participation in comparison to the types of news that people interact with,
SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE 20
or to study the idea that social media-based news feeds are more diversified than single-source
traditional news. Regardless, the minimal information that exists on the shift toward use of social
media to discover news still reveals the key information discussed in this paper, such as the
social and psychological impact. The shift is far from over, and news media will continue to
change as the two entities merge together to create an accessible and diverse network of news
content.
Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA AS A NEWS SOURCE
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