I had a fiery discussion the other day with someone about what is being published in the media and the dangers that the average person faced everyday, even though the "news", that being television, radio and newspapers' news casting, do not reflect it. *Yes that person was my Mom so imagine my annoyance in this discussion*. Her argument was essentially that "we young people" are unaware of the dangers around us because we don't physically sit through the tormenting hour of the three different news casts, nor do “we” pick up the papers and skim through the millions of ads and the perpetual politicking parades, to search for the crime stories/obituaries of yesterday’s murders as well as to those persons that ARE NOT going to jail, and the thirty minute stint of radio’s news briefs on the hour every hour or so.
I considered her argument for all of
three minutes, seeing that we’ve had this tit for tat before, so I became an
expert, and countered with the fact that news, videos, broadcasts etc. that the
prominent news channels depicted, I've already encountered, either through a forwarded message, or maco’d through social
media channels, more specifically Facebook. This made me realise that that traditional
information carriers are becoming 'late to the party' when it comes to important
news stories. For instance, I remembered an incident where a woman was allegedly
unfairly arrested during the infamous S.O.E and was being hurled in the back of a
police van by two police men and a police woman. To give a time sense, the
video was circulating on Facebook for almost a week, I got wind of it on the
Monday, I saw that TV6 carried the news story the following Monday.
Two
questions come to mind; Is it that gate-keeping has become more important than
carrying important news? Or is the fact that traditional media outlets are
losing steam in bringing the information to the public and are, for want of a
better word becoming defunct. In relation to the first question, gate keeping
is done blatantly there’s no qualms about that since on the headlines of most
news casts are either politics, about politics, related to politics, distantly
referring to politics *you get my point*. The second question is however
something that needs to be analysed. Even CCN has a Facebook page, which
throughout the day, gives news highlights as they receive them, so by the time
news comes on, both radio and television, it is just a compilation of what we
already know. With blackberry being accessible, news is now at our finger tips.
A broadcast about a road block reaches 100 persons in one shot before it can be
announced on the airwaves or print. Papers are now available free online. Going
back to what I've come across in my mass media course where we interviewed the General Manager of
Guardian Mr. Douglas Wilson, the newspapers now had to become Irelevant *a word coined by Mr. Wilson* by posting online
newspapers, to keep up with the new media since, they are quickly becoming,
well... irrelevant.
While traditional media still perform its main functions i.e, as the functionalists Laswell and Wright indicated;
includes surveillance, interpretation of information, linkage within society, transmission
of values as well as entertainment, that is all synchronised in one nice
package called social media. Where I can play games, become informed about
important stories, allowed to post feedback and inform others about things I deem
interesting and still laugh at and with people about it, which is essentially done
in less than the hour of the tightly gated news broadcasting. To me, sitting in
front of a television as the clock strikes 7:00pm is a thing of the past, since
some way or the other I will be informed of the latest story.
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