Social Media: Some Influence, Some Impacts

June 17, 2018

Many experts have been calling for the death of mainstream media for years—with newspapers and televised news in a strange downturn in impact—a new mainstream media is arising. We learned more about how social media isn’t the death of the old guard, but actually a new wrinkle in that world from a Los Angeles Times story, “Stop Calling Them ‘Social’: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Et al Are The New Mainstream Media.”

According to the story:

“In the new mainstream media, there is no context, and you are always on the record — to your own followers, the potential millions of those who retweet you and any other media outlet, whose members are constantly scanning social platforms for sources, announcements, trends, feel-good moments, spats and offensive statements.”

This logic has been supported recently, by reports that most adults in the US get their news from a social media source. According to these numbers 62% of adults get their news from social media. This is a staggering number that spells out just how much power the platform has.

We noted USA Today’s analysis of falling IQs. The culprit according to the newspaper is schools and nutrition. (See “IQ Scores Have Been Falling for Decades, and a New Study Blames Schools and Nutrition.”) Television, broken families, digital distractions—not a problem.

The article itself illustrates the trend.

Patrick Roland, June 17, 2018

Comments

One Response to “Social Media: Some Influence, Some Impacts”

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