Don’t Make My Feed Depressing
The world is reaching out to social media for news. Students at The American University of Paris, however, want their hard news elsewhere.
As social media has become ingrained into our daily lives, journalism has had to act fast to understand how to navigate social media to share content, monitor discussions, and interact with audiences. With 3.81 billion people active on social media, news organizations making an appearance on people’s feeds is a no brainer. This said, it seems in 2020 students at The American University of Paris (AUP) don’t seek out news organizations through social media because of the vague and depressing content on their accounts.
Relationship between social media and journalism
It’s clear social media plays an integral role in journalism today since it beat traditional journalism platforms in capturing people’s attention. According to a survey from Common Sense Media and SurveyMonkey, more than half of teens (54 percent) go to sites such as Facebook and Twitter for their news. The Pew Research Center reports say 55% of U.S. adults now get their news from social media either “often” or “sometimes”.
With that in mind, however, news on social media isn’t always reliable information from accredited news organizations. Rather, the majority of news that people seem to digest on social media is from top name celebrities, influencers, family, and friends that they follow. This means that social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are platforms for news, but not necessarily for news organizations. As an example, we can turn to high profile celebrities like Kim Kardashian who has a 191 million user following — a follower total more than The NY Times, BBC, and CNN combined.
Why aren’t news organizations popular on social media?
News organizations are clearly lacking in their following on social media accounts. Why? One answer doesn’t fit all. But quite simply, social media is not the place for journalism.
German student Carolin S. Wilhelm says, “When I’m on social media I’m usually trying to shut off, so I don’t really pay much attention to the news when I’m on it.”
Students at the American University of Paris believe that if they followed many news organizations on social media that the platforms would become stressful places.
French student Annelyse Gaston-Carrere says, “If I want to check the news I go check it out myself. I don’t want to be seeing my feeds full of news, it’s depressing.”
In fact, students that do actively follow some media organizations on social media, indeed report that their experiences aren’t always pleasant.
“ I think that Twitter can be stressful because I follow all these news outlets. Seeing all the headlines at once, especially this year, is a non-stop stream of sad information” says, Avery Harle a French-American student.
Social media is not enough!
AUP students have clearly expressed that social media isn’t where they primarily seek out news organizations. However, depressing news agendas aren’t the only reason why. Students expressed that news organizations on social media don’t publish sufficient content that gives viewers a full understanding of what is going on in the world.
American student Dominic Spada says, “ I don’t tend to follow them [news organizations] because I like to have the full story right there to read if I find something interesting.”
It’s not a surprise, however, that these news organizations don’t have elaborate in-depth content on their accounts, because most social media platforms have limits on the characters that can be published in a post. With Instagram only allowing 2,200 characters and Twitter only 280 characters, it seems unrealistic that journalism can fully do its job.
Agence France-Presse(AFP) Paris Correspondent Jurgen Hecker, agrees that social is not the place for news and sheds some light as to why the news has been so unsuccessful on various social platforms.
“Social media were not created to carry news, they were created to carry gossip, opinions, experiences, cute pet pictures, swap recipes and give holiday feedback. But it turned out that, for a while at least, many people, especially young people, felt little or no need to go looking for news when all the ‘news’ they were interested in, the gossip, the opinions, the cool kids, was available in a social media feed.”
Evidently, news organizations are on social media for the wrong reasons. Their job to produce journalism cannot fully be conducted through social media today. Therefore, news organizations have been using these social media platforms purely as an attempt to win followers and increase traffic on their main sites. It seems that even their viewers have noticed that social media isn’t the place for hard news.
Most AUP students don’t use social media as their primary way of receiving hard news. While they might follow a few news organizations on social media, students have recognized that social media platforms are meant for communicating and sharing with friends and family — maybe even to have a little fun. Students don’t want to scroll down their feed and see post after post of harsh news with cheeky titles.
The students that have expressed that they do indeed follow news organizations on social media mention that they are just a source to get quick updates. No one has indicated that the news on social media is sufficient. Even with the increase in usage of social media during the Coronavirus pandemic, it seems that students are still using alternative methods of news like TV, websites, and news organizations apps.
The reality is, however, even though students don’t follow many news organizations on social media, to avoid depressing feeds, they do follow celebrities, influencers, and friends. All of which, post about their opinions which oftentimes can be misconstrued as news journalism.
