Impact of social media on traditional media, more negative – Practitioners

Some media practitioners on Friday said the impact of social media on the traditional media had been more negative than positive.

The practitioners spoke with our reporter in Abuja on how social media has impacted the traditional media.

Mr Fred Eze, an Editor with The Sun Newspaper described social media as a platform where anybody could say anything because of lack of restrictions and regulations on their operations.

He said that most stories on social media were not taken very seriously because some of them were not credible but people would rather read them than to wait for the traditional media or Newspapers.

“This trend has affected traditional media as sales have continued to dropped and with the advent of social media, more fake news are being spread without being verified.

“But if such news is found on the websites of traditional and credible media, you can be sure that it is authentic.

“Fake news is a very big threat to reality and it has been spreading through social media, people who consume these fake contents don’t care to find out the sources.

“Sometimes, even the traditional media pick some things from the social media but they have to verify.

“Social media gives everyone liberty to air whatever they want and this puts the traditional media on their toes,’’ he said.

Eze said that for the traditional media to remain relevant and reduce the negative impacts, they have to identify the opportunities social media offer and take full advantage of them.

Mr Senator Iroegbu, a Correspondent with This Day Newspaper, said that traditional media was becoming less influential and some newspaper houses were already closing down as online media were gaining more grounds.

“Social media helps to send news faster and this affects the quality of work because before the traditional media break their stories, they look at the accuracy of their work but some people are in a hurry to get information.

“Also concerning cyber bullying in a case whereby you cannot address someone physically, you can talk to the person anyhow online because there is no barrier and there are no security men to bundle you.

“If the traditional media can’t beat the social media then they join them.

“That is why most of the traditional media now are online and they are working to make sure that their stories are online and they have a team for this,’’ he said.

Iroegbu said that the traditional media now have social media links with information technology managers to make the platform more interactive to compete with social media platforms.

Miss Adeola Adeoti, a social media blogger, however, said people were now using social media news to know credibility of news.

She said that people would rather check social media first before checking with the traditional media.

“People actually prefer social media news to the one in newspapers, although there are still people who will buy newspapers but those ones are of the older generation.

“Still talking about credibility, there are some social media platforms that carry news that I won’t consider as fact until I see it on another social media platform,’’ Adeoti said.