A new experiment in social media and journalism is taking place in a small barn in France. For the experiment, five journalists will live in isolation without internet connections, smart phones, print media, or any connection to the outside world – except a cell phone and a computer with a clear hard drive. The journalists will receive their news solely from Twitter and Facebook and will be asked to report their version of the news while following a number of rules (translated). Their story will live on a blog (not yet available) and on their Twitter account (translated version). The experiment will last five days and is being sponsored by the RFP French-language public broadcasters association.
The purpose of this experiment is to test whether or not social media tools are actually valuable media channels for receiving news and to test the legitimacy of the services as sources.
Now, just for the record, I don’t think people should only get their news from their friends and those that are not professional journalists, nor do I believe one should only get their news from two sources. But I’m going to play devil’s advocate here, just for a second.
Who’s to say what’s a legitimate news source?
I’m going to come out and say it. I receive much of my news from Facebook and Twitter. Especially related to deaths of famous persons, major court decisions, elections, and the weather even. Not to say that I don’t read “legitimate news sources,” and I realize it makes a difference who you’re friends with and the quality of information they’re exposed to. Being a fan of Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood on Facebook myself, I often get news about court decisions or events that I should be aware of. Are they “legitimate sources”?
Organizations and presidents aside, what’s wrong with learning about major events through social media — is that any different than learning about it from your neighbor as you pass them at the grocery store? Or your colleague as he reads aloud the latest headline on the BBC? I think not.
{ 3 } Comments
This is a very interesting post. I agree with you Rachel, that I do get a lot of news from my friend’s posts on facebook and other social media sites. Whether I can see social media replacing the news? Not really, because even though I learn from my friend’s they might have got it from their friends and so on but still there would be this first person who originated the whole thing as in is the source for it.
Then again there is the issue of credibility of the source like you mention about whether the source is legitimate or not. Currently you trust what your friend posts because they usually have a link back to the news website associated with their post. If you totally eliminate the news provider, I personally don’t think that I will trust just a posting on facebook.
Hi Rachel. Do you know where there might be a follow-up on this experiment? It might be too soon after the fact to have feedback yet but it would be interesting to see some results.
I can see social media taking a place in delivering news, though not taking over. As the current news networks / newspapers already show, there’s always some bias in the mix but if I were traveling to, or simply interested in far-away parts of the world, I think it would be interesting to tap into a blog or similar to get a different view on the current events there.
Nice post! It’s so true that “it makes a difference who you’re friends with and the quality of information they’re exposed to”. Social media is such an efficient channel to distribute news. But personally, I think news posted by a friend without links to a legitimate news source will reduce its credibility, unless this friend has direct connections with the event/issue.