INTRODUCTION:

With the growth of social media, traditional media is under challenge of emotional impact of social media, forced to reckon with the impact the social media can create on the common man’s views and perception on current affairs.

A journalist’s pledge is to seek the truth and make sure it is reported to people. When social media comes into play, Journalists resort to “publish first, correct if necessary” as a result of crowd pressure, it meddles with people’s mental construct, criticism loses credibility as common man starts criticising and legit critics are hard to find among the sea of self-proclaimed critics. Scholars have argued upon the change of the news content and people’s mind set. We read the people’s status and opinions on media and the news to arrive at the intensity of social media’s impact on news. This research studies the impact of the news updates generated along with people’s opinions which flood the network on people’s perception of happenings.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Social media- The responsible medium:

Social media, highly trustable to carry news has a consequence of opinionating. Revolutionising country non-daily reporting as Josie Vine (2012) puts it; they have an in-depth review report to support the news, hence avoiding risks of uncertainty. Panneerselvam, reader’s editor of The Hindu stands stumped on hearing suggestions for fact-checking and condemning as social media. People are held responsible for their posted content, yet free to post unless there is any public disorder or impact to the sovereignty and integrity of the Nation. It is also reiterated that journalists are responsible for setting standards in social media. The swift invasion of social media has left the common man bereft of prior knowledge, leaving its usage and impacts ambiguous. Although further findings on the subject reveal the social networking being a double agent, this revolution has completely transformed lives of all people. People come out of their shells to connect with the others. Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. work based on bringing joy to the people by empowering them to connect with people across the world. Quite amazed by these, people fall into the set trap of addiction to be connected, seen and praised, making them sensitive to all small things, rather than focusing on larger, important agendas. Idling time over social media creates a distraction and makes one forget time, creating imbalanced minds. Social media plays an immense role in revolutionising people by mustering support for any purpose instantly. Until now, social media has empowered people to talk out loud (sans-critical analysis of the topic) but has not made people critically appraise their stake and act righteously for it. The video-sharing platform YouTube and social networking site Facebook play major roles in social media followed by micro-blogging service Twitter. 78% of the social web users seek news via these platforms and 66% of users agree that the social web contains in-depth content than the accessible traditional media. News consumption is the reading of articles or viewing videos/pictures. Video platforms are accessed by 36% of users, 33% of users state that Pew Research Center Twitter that most of the graduate students and professionals start seeking news through traditional media majorly, websites and applications, concluding that social media are additional paths to news, not a replacement for more traditional ones.36% of the users access video share platforms, 33% of the users use social networking and 20% of them access microblogging services for their daily news consumption activities i.e. reading/ viewing articles, pictures, videos. But when it comes to producing news, by writing articles, participating in discussions and disseminating the news (i.e.Sharing/forwarding the news), social networking sites ranks first for production (24, 4%) and dissemination (20%). Behaviour towards social media news is still passive as the possibility to publish and disseminate news is perceived by few users.

Social media is an addiction to people like how processed food is. It is rightly marketed to be a free, front-shelf commodity grabbing public attention. A clustered array of news from various sources, being well presented with provocative headlines and addictive perspectives are found to be in increased abundance makes the intake of the read content, an instinctual act. Adding to the refined sugar culture of news, public willingness to pay for the content is a mere 10%. 67% say they would not pay any amount for their favourite brand. Social media, engineered for addiction earns from advertising where more you check-in, the more you click, the longer you scroll, the more advertising opportunities they have, regardless of the value to the reader. It is a propaganda machine that amplifies everything that people want to hear, making people unwilling to look out of the bubble as a result of its overwhelming nature as in the fast foods. Social media uses complex methods of gathering content triggering high-arousal emotions (lacking authentic information condensed to understandable form) which will make people come back for more. Social media suffers consumptive effects like echo chamber effect, trolls, abusive behaviours, personal marketing, “feel good” mind-set, “glad it’s not me” satisfaction, cheap thrills and lack of intellectual benefit. Shifting the importance to the publisher of the content weakens the impact of the content itself and makes the bias and trustworthiness of the content unpredictable. According to ‘The Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City’, the ratio between PR generated content and official stories created by journalists is 86-14.

Crowd checking/ Fact checking:

More than 50% of the journalists have social media as their main source of news. Their value for people’s opinions is more than that of organisation’s words. This shows the dominant ideology of crowd checking i.e. emphasising on the large sect of people the news has reached. Inflicted demand for gripping news by the minute (as social media is always up-to-date), Journalists resort to “publish first, correct if necessary” method, which questions the truthfulness of the news. Another impact of the demand lets journalists delve more into the social media, thus gaining more in influence over the readers. Oxford reveals propaganda on social media for manipulating public opinion. From Russia, where 45% of highly active Twitter accounts are bots, to Taiwan, where a campaign against President Tsai Ing-wen involving thousands of heavily co-ordinated accounts sharing Chinese mainland propaganda, it is observed that the social media is an international battleground for dirty politics. Further, Philip Howard’s previous research as part of Oxford Internet Institute’s

Computational Propaganda Research Project has revealed lies, junk and misinformation supported by Facebook and Twitter’s algorithms. In a forum where people trust and rely on, automated accounts generating likes, comments and shares creates an illusion of popularity and misleads people about ideas, ways and emotions. The illusion of online support for a candidate can spur actual support through a bandwagon effect. Bots massively multiply the ability of one person to attempt to manipulate people. Trump made Twitter centre stage in this election, and voters paid attention. Lack of verification makes the news presented unreliable, as one wrong tweet or one wrong post can impact people’s understanding of the subject or even trigger a movement among huge masses. In spite of the diminishing credibility, today’s journalists being negligent foresee the worsening state of news in the global forum.

Facebook was accused of tampering with their Trending News listings in order to prioritize, or de-emphasize, news content as they saw fit. Ironically, it remains the most preferred platform, followed by Twitter, well known for user’s authenticity yet the hub that brews chaos directly from the people’s mouths. In spite of the well-established status of being infamous for fake news and provocatory posts, they are the invincible when it comes to the exchange of information. Scholars and legal commentators have been raising concerns over the authenticity of digital sources, reliability, comprehensiveness of coverage, and impermanence of citations for years. Take link rot, for instance. Research from the previous decade shows that 40% of links published in law reviews from 2001 to 2003 were broken links in 2006.The need for in-depth fact-checking has increased with the growth of digital journalism. Anyone can disperse information on social media with ease, which leads to the spread of incorrect statements. It has never been easier for politicians to spread falsehoods than it is today, and so it’s critical that journalists’ fact check what the politicians are saying. The constant problem, constant challenge is that when somebody puts a statement out there, it can reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of people.80 % of fact-checking sites use rating systems. Rating systems are no different than headlines. They summarize the in-depth journalism and they do it in a very useful way that allows you to use structured journalism to recombine the fact checks in helpful ways. Because Politifact and other fact-checking sites are structured, readers can determine things like, ‘Are there more falsehoods on Fox than CNN? ʼ or ‘Does Michele Bachmann have higher false ratings than Ted.

Reshaping news:

In a fast-paced competitive world, the competition of pace should be paid heed. More topics discussed openly slowly yet successfully bring people out of their enclosure. The present state of being vulnerably exposed to burning issues which has the consequence of not being able to trust the right people. Often mislead by polished/ reshaped news, people are often found to be the rope in the tug of war between the facts and opinions. Social media has emerged to be the exchange hub of information among the public. It is a moving circle of connections, views and thoughts. Amidst the pool of social problems, awareness proves effective. However, the awakening of the narcissist in people may prove otherwise when tested. When a journalist expresses an opinion on the Twitter, the distinction between the opinion being a private one or the one expressed as a virtue of being a journalist is fuzzy yet vital and thus, should be consciously aware. People’s statements made on social media is often taken either as offence or supportive. Also, direct contact with an audience can also be useful for finding sources, seeking out information or experiences, or getting opinions on something. The contact which journalists have with their audience has changed completely from more or less non-existent where they used to receive letters or telephone calls from readers after publication to having direct contact with a group of readers or the audience. This is not only after story gets published, but also during the research phase. From having a position in which they had to talk to their readers, today’s journalists have a more humble attitude towards their audience. Receptiveness and capacity for dialogue are perhaps qualities that are more important for journalists than ever before.

Social media is the norm. Its widespread use has already caused print (and online) reviews to shrink. When you get used to 140 characters, even a 500-word review can seem like Dickens. Content which keeps appearing on social media is often one’s own criticism or one’s association with the existing comment of other’s so-called criticism. Having criticism diluted from a few intellectuals’ job to anyone job. Further, each reader being a critic to the content/news has increased people’s participation in publishing their opinions and wanting people to read it. People look to the critics to deliver not just an analysis of the scenario but also the word-of-mouth on it. In other words, they are expected to say whether the issue is beneficial or not or any other comments.In a modern, democratic society, with more access to more information and insight than ever before, people should be evolving their ways of thinking and be more open to others views, but the data shows otherwise. Echo chamber effect of social media is that social platforms, with their personalized algorithms and user-defined news-feeds lead to people having a more narrow view of the world, despite having access to a much broader scope of information. By building own media inputs based on indicated preferences and selections, a system that simply re-enforces one’s own bias would be created, as opposed to providing with additional perspective. If people are served more content of their interest, they’ll more time on that platform, which is beneficial to these platforms themselves. When considering the greater understanding of situations outside of one’s own, that process may actually have a negative impact, and lead to greater societal division.

Social media is known for making a story trend that isn’t trending to provoke a movement or a bigger issue. Such actions can change the course of the discussion. Back in 2010, around 340,000 extra voters turned out to take part in the US Congressional elections because of a single election-day Facebook message. Facebook, in the past, has also proven that it can manipulate the emotional state of users by showing or restricting content types in their feeds. Ninety per cent of the overwhelming flood of information has been created in the last two years with much of that information coming from social media. This has led to so many people feeling worn out by the constant bombardment of political content. A general scenario in the USA during the Trump’s political campaign where debates and discussions were brimming on the social media primarily and also the broadcast observes 37% of social media users being worn out by the political campaign, in comparison to only 20% who like seeing lots of political information. 59% of people describe their online interactions with people they disagree with, in a political sense, as “stressful and frustrating,” while 64% say their online discussions with those they disagree with leave them feeling “as if they have less in common than they thought. 83% of Americans try to avoid posts from friends they disagree with politically, with 39% saying that they’ve blocked or unfriended someone in order to avoid opposing political views. With 46 million approx. followers of his personal Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, his reach and influence extends globally and is often a source of news that’s influential enough to drive and sway hundreds of pieces of media stories (real and fake) through one post. A Recent find by Buzz Feed News is that in the final three months of the US election campaign, the 20 top fake news stories on Facebook produced more user engagement than the 20 top real news stories from verified news websites. The difficulty in determining what is real and what is fake has alarming effects due to its influence over consumers who are easily swayed by what they read. Whether intentional or not, social media technology has moved far beyond a platform that was initially intended to facilitate communication and networking between users, to a filter that has completely disrupted the way that audiences and organisations access, distribute and consume news.

Ideologies and mind-set:

Maxwell McComb (2011) established that the news media is powerful enough to influence a nation’s agenda, a compelling one. It makes prominent the various factions of the functional society, linking the people to each action. Lippman starts his reading with the primary ideology of the media educating people of the outside world activities which otherwise may not be directly accessible, as a reel of events in our minds. Media bearing millennial of evidence of inflicting opinions ought to be used wisely. From the scattered mass united by one media source to in numerous sources driving people in one way, social media is known for ideological segregation among people, contrasting activities within small circles, rippling among the public. Among all social networking platforms, Facebook draws multiple times as many political news consumers as the sites Yahoo news (14%) or Twitter (9%). Facebook is now a widely-used source for news about government and politics. One unique feature of social media is how the political news one sees is impacted by one’s choice of friends and past behaviour on the site. Each individual sees a different mix of content, depending on who is in his or her feed, as well as the kinds of posts he or she has responded to in the past. When it comes to politics, a common question to ask is the degree to which people create circles of friends that reflect their own ideological views. While nearly all users get a mix of views, those with stronger ideological tendencies are more likely to surround themselves with like-minded opinions. Those who pay attention to politics on Facebook, majorly follow issue-based groups created by fellow people who will post content by themselves, seconded by news organizations, reporters or commentators.

Consistent conservatives are less likely than consistent liberals to get government and political news on Facebook or Twitter, primarily because they are less likely to use the sites in the first place. Consistent liberals involve themselves more emotionally with the trends and views on the social media than the consistent conservatives. While consistent conservatives are the most likely to see Facebook posts in line with their political views, consistent liberals are the most likely to block others on social networking sites because they disagree with their content. Interactivity paradox is well explained as “closer to news but confused”. The fatigue caused by too many opinions is one reason. The degree of interactivity in new media is defined as “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of the mediated environment in real time”. Interactive features are responsible for giving net news sites their “stickiness” or continuing appeal. The more the perspectives of news people are fed, the more confused they will be due to lack of coordinative criticism. Also, the social media paradigm is a mirage which makes users sees that they control everything, remain private and their voice is a must but the reality is opposite. They are being controlled to the extent of their addiction, they are used as data sources and the more clearly they think their thoughts are, the more confused they may be. Internet we see is increasingly tailored to what our profile indicates our interests are. The Internet is a qualitatively different media environment with a high cognitive and emotional barrier to entry. With the choice of customisation of the way the news is presented, the resulting complexity multiplies. This lacks coherence as this focuses more on individual concerns and consumer suggestion than information with broader social relevance. Media structures that offer increased user control require increased mental effort, which is required to locate information and understand how it fits within a larger information source.

Sensitivity and tolerance:

The youth become more vulnerable, as they are the people who seek approval for their identity by an outside group, are more impressionable and lack media literacy. They are lingering on the edge of a thin line between hate and tolerance. Anonymity and threat are accompanied by support and an option to choose. Hate groups are the kind of people who are an easy target and can be drawn by false sympathising demonstrated to gain trust, radical approach, dehumanisation and offensive content. Social sensitivity and tolerance are the triggers to online sensitivity and tolerance. The impulse to know each one’s favourable, challenge the journalists. In the name of freedom of speech, social media often becomes a debate ground when it comes to issues where there’s a difference of opinion. More expression can make the electorate less-well-informed, not because people are dumb or lazy, but because, the way in which people take in information now is bombarded with aggregated impressions. Unless one really has time to research and calmly consider every story that pops up on Facebook feed, it’s almost impossible not to be influenced by the constant flow of impressions made with images, headlines, memes, etc. The more these impressions jibe with biases, the more they solidify those prejudices, making people less receptive to ideas that might challenge their thinking. Apart from lobbying and other forms of corporate meddling, a vested interest could sway without anyone really noticing, and paradoxically by using these same technologies we believe provide us with better insight and a stronger voice in the process. The Internet can hardly be a tool for transparency, if we’re each looking through our own opaque set of lenses; but then combine this habit of human nature with manipulation of the data, and you get the opposite result of the new enlightenment that was supposed to come with the digital age. The social media experience is chockfull of opinions with which one may disagree and would spend an unreasonable amount of time sifting through other opinions in search of competing ideas. Opinions and ideas are not the same things. Competing ideas are about problem-solving. Competing opinions are mostly theatre. Social media turns this into a participatory theatre that adds narcissism, which magnifies the divisiveness in our political process. The environment is ideal for manipulators to subtly manipulate political outcomes. The promise that the Internet “democratizes” information sounds progressive, but the ways in which people interact with these tools doesn’t necessarily foster progress and it isn’t always democratic. The likes, comments and posts shared on social media tap into addictions, desires, anxieties, joys etc. The pull of social media addiction is caused by dopamine and oxytocin. Dopamine causes people to seek, desire, and search and is stimulated by unpredictability, small bits of information and by reward cues. The pull of dopamine is so strong that tweeting is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol and oxytocin is released when people kiss or hug and causes lowered stress levels, feelings of love, trust and empathy, generosity, etc. These come with social media, too. As a result, social media users have shown to be more trusting than the average Internet user.

Humans devote about 30–40% of all speech to talking about themselves normally and 80% on social media. Social media provides time to construct and refine i.e. self-presentation and it increases one’s self-esteem. The most prominent way people work on self-presentation is through buying things and acquiring things that signify who they are. Brands that create aspirational ways for their community to interact with them create social media opportunities and also the chance to move beyond likes into something that lasts. And when people share the right type of content, they gain social currency—their stock goes up. People feel better about themselves when people react positively to what they post on social media.

METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS:

The quantitative data was collected through survey among the youth within the age group of 15-30 years to understand their perception of using the social media for news. For this, questionnaire was used as a tool and was filled by 100 respondents. Google and Microsoft aid was taken in conducting survey and compiling facts and condensing the information into statistical data.

The data collected from the survey has been graphically represented below.

68% of the working people, 88% of the college students and 83% of the school students depend on social media for knowing news updates either partially or completely.67% of the working people, 62% of the college students and 48% of the school students show higher sensitivity to the posted content. Sensitivity stands directly proportional to provocativeness and sense of agreeability. 52% of school students showing diminishing sensitivity to the content is proportional to their reduced activeness in cross checking, involvement and remain comparatively more undeterred by social media and its influences.

72% of the working people, 80% of the college students and 79% of the school students mostly agree with the reliability of the content and 29% of the working people, 22% of the college students and 31% of the school students among this remain balanced. Maximum people of all age group believe social media content to be true, especially having observed follow up of story as they keep scrolling through the platform.

When it comes to double checking the news, 75% of the working people, 61% of the college students and 58% of the school students cross check whereas 11% of the working people, 19% of the college students and 21% of the school students do not cross check at all. As people’s age and knowledge increases, they start cross-checking the posted content more with their sources like friends, other social media pages/platforms, news sources and online sources.

On an average, 74% of the social media users keep to scrolling through content feed and hitting like button for as many posts as they think they like/ associate it. This activity is seconded by sharing (59% of the users) these stories on their personal timeline/wall or sharing it with people by tagging them or sending them messages with attachments, etc. Half of the people follow by commenting on these posts, regarding their opinions and what they want to convey to particular people. And the least number of people (31%) take a further step ahead and discuss about the news or issue and not stick to what has been posted online.

73% students believe that the content is authentic, not biased whereas 40% among the working population believes the content to be biased. The increase in percentage by 13% is though not hugely significant, yet based on their experiences and encounters with the social media. This correlates with their comparatively higher habit of cross-checking the news.

Nearly one-third people of all the categories seem to feel out-dated when not in access to social media. At the same time, more people claim to be relaxed with increased time for productive activity, dominated by school students. Other 30% say they don’t feel any change. Only nearly 10% of each category expresses adverse signs of addiction i.e. depressed feel when as a medium sign of addiction i.e. is felt maximum by college students. Generally, 60-65% of people prefer television while only 50% of people prefer newspaper. Clearly, electronic news media has an advantage over the traditional ones and that comes with the opportunity cost of implied credibility. School students prefer news websites mostly (70%)and blogs are the least read. These results show the market advantage of advertising, manipulating, publicity and ease of access.

All people use whatsapp (98%), Facebook trend is found more in college students (85%), followed by working people (82%). YouTube, instagram, pinterest, snapchat, hike, tumblr, telegram and quora are respectively dominated by college students, mostly followed by school students.

While majority if the working people and college students spend 1-5 hours in social media and have been active for approximately, 3-7 years, most of the school students use social media for less than 2 hours and have been using social media for 1-3 years. Majority of the people use social media to find information and to keep in touch with family and friends, seconded by sharing content and to view other’s opinions.

CONCLUSION:

The sample size of the research being 100 per category limits the stability of findings, as the wide differences have been brought into view. The limitation also leads to various results which may/ may not correlate with one another and may lack diversity due to limited sampling. In Chennai, people seem to be in the exploratory phase in case of social media. They are neither addicted to it nor averted to it. People seem to be in the mid-range of social media usage. Social media is evolving in a crude form. If let go in its self-directed path, people will lead their lives in a haphazard manner, lacking the right principles of life and will eventually become a victim of destruction, which may not be social media’s goal. Social media is made by the people. However, when people are affected by the social media in the primary stages, it will affect them and the media multiple times, magnifying scores with each succeeding stage. Whether it bears fruit or poison lies in the hands of the common public. Now that social media has emerged and people are running tests to learn of its uses, it is also crucial to channelize this source of views and information to play a positive, healthy and fair role in a healthy democracy and spreading knowledge and awareness. Social media is like the general public part of a democracy. Opinions, movements, expressions can be brought to people’s knowledge in a rather open manner. When it comes to current affairs, people should know that social media is not the rooted source of information for all happenings. One has to be intellectually updated in order to make sense of current happenings, having a rational mind view of the reasoning behind emotions and actions. Social media is a huge mass of positives and negatives. If one is not sound enough to differentiate reasoning, people may have a hard time having all the mass information causing fatigue and stress to rush the decisions. Like quoted previously, for a meaningful survival, one has to balance the double-edged sword which social media occurs to be.

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Received on 24.10.2017 Modified on 14.12.2017

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(1): 238-244.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00043.8