Social media can help 'old media' get better

With the monitoring and analysis of social media by the journalists and analysts of the ‘old media’ we are seeing a vast improvement in the coverage of international news – especially when it comes to understanding the cultural, economic and political background.

There is a very good reason why. ‘Old media’ either have a correspondent in other countries (if they do it right) or they ‘parachute’ people in whenever a story breaks. Parachuting someone in means that they rely on the existing governmental and official structure to get the news. Being a correspondent means that they still have to rely on the official structure – otherwise they will be ostracised in the future – but at least they have a better understanding of the country. What they usually lack – due to their reporter, or time constraints, or their policies – is a deeper understanding of the background and the way the ‘common man’ perceives the situation.

This was extremely apparent to me with the Greek riots. Since I live in Britain I was watching the coverage predominantly on the British media – outlets like the Guardian, the Times, BBC News and Sky News. Initially I was left with an impression that the riots were down to the unfortunate death of the young boy. As a Greek, I know this not to be true, because I have an ‘insider’ understanding of how protest works in Greece. As the days went by I saw more in-depth coverage and actually a turn away from the violence, towards an analysis of the underlying reasons for the protest.

That is when we started hearing about unemployment, scandals, patronage and the ever present problem of corruption. In other words – we turned to the real issues.

How did this happen? Apart from having people ‘on the ground’ I think that social media actually help enormously. The discussions held on twitter, friendfeed and facebook, the blog posts, the photographs and videos uploaded give a glimpse into the complex psyche of the Greek citizens and highlight the underlying social, political and cultural norms behind the riots.

This glimpse into the background of the news is an important lifeline to ‘old media’ – especially the press I would think. With breaking news taken over by television, and now increasingly by the internet, the press needs to retain the lead in well-thought out and balanced analysis of the news. Here is an opportunity – in the form of social media – to glimpse behind the curtain of government press releases and official positions to what people really think.

Share/Save