TREND TRUTH
Social Media makes impact on Global news feeds
On June 16, 2009 the coverage of the Iranian election assumed a global position, as it was announced to the world in high volume on Twitter. Twitter, a real time social media platform is, according to the NY Times, “One of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” According to data collected by FGI Research on June 28, 2009, 19.72% of Americans currently have an account with Twitter. Which begs the question: Does Twitter have a big enough credible presence to affect the news?
FGI Research has concluded that: 51% of Americans believe that Social Media sites, like Twitter, affect the news. National news networks like CNN or FOX news use Twitter regularly to report how the country feels about different topics. This extremely interactive forum for generating immediate feedback is a quick and easy barometer for the media to interpret the sentiment of a large sample of Americans. 28.6% of all respondents said that they use social media sites, like Twitter, to follow the news; and of those, 45.8% said that they find the same amount or more news on social media sites than they did last year.
It’s not a stretch to say that the increased attention in the national news has boosted Twitter’s membership. According to our study, Twitter is growing: 17% of respondents, who are not currently account holders, say that they plan on creating an account within the next 6 months. This means that, according to our data, Twitter is growing faster than MySpace, YouTube, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, and Flicker. In fact, microblogging is becoming a break out form for reaching large audiences in an inexpensive way to make updates in real time. It’s easy to see why some companies have invested in full time monitoring of their brand in social media.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
The news media has begun to learn that the public is watching and that they are ‘connected’. It should be obvious that if they ignore the media used to connect, they would be remiss indeed, as the valuable resource provided by millions of viewers cannot and should not be ignored. Thus, their interest in such media should not be merely as a study in social organizations and discourse, but as a source of eyewitness news as well.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Since one can no longer trust the news media to report the news in an unbiased way we have no choice but to turn to social networks to get to tha truth.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
With more and more coverage about twitter as a business owner I am starting to think I have to create a twitter account just to be relevant to my viewers. Having the link on your site seems to tell people that this company is in the know and completely accessible.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I just can’t find the time to spend monitoring news in this fashion. I would much rather pull up an actual news website and read the news and comment directly through their website.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
There would be a lot not known about what was happening in Iran at the time of the elections if people were not able to twitter. It really broke the government enforced silence and let the people have their say.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I have no desire whatsoever to use this service. I do not live my life in the palm of my hand, and this so-called ’social’ media is creating anything BUT ’social’ behavior. It creates nothing more than dozens of people in the room ignoring each other, and staring into their hands.