The ephemerality of the information

The new era of information (Internet) has brought a massification of the themes and topics that are treated in mass media like Internet, TV, radio, newspapers, etc. Now, simply news like a football player who sign for another football team is mentioned in mass media and social networks.

The information is allocated like the relevance that has in the actuality, and the main objective of the media is to get share, more than any other media. So, it’s not uncommon to see how if a few days ago Japan’s tsunamis and earthquakes occupied the front pages, when nowadays the front pages are focused on the conflict in Libya, in which are involved USA and the EU. However, who decided the main themes in the public agenda? After reasoning, we conclude that media doesn’t reflect public opinion, otherwise they create it.

Mass media are who are in the place where the news occurs, they have the power to choose the events that are going to be transformed en news and are going to occupy pages in newspapers, news in TV, main themes in Internet, etc.

In the past, news only impacted in the society with the old media, but currently, information has discovered a new media to expand at a huge scale, the Internet. In Internet, current events are discuses in blogs, wikis and web pages, but especially in social networks, in which news are converted in “trending topics” or “hashtags”. All news that interest more to the consumers or the followers of this social networks are discussed strictly, superficially or with a bit of humor. For example, in the photo that Pique published his romance with the Colombian singer Shakira, people who follow the twitter of the football player noticed that in one side of the photo was person with a plaid shirt with a funny pose. After that, people began to publish comments about the man, resulting one of the trending topics in Twitter for a few days. This doesn’t be treated in the others media, so we can say that Internet has decentralized the information.

Now, becoming Internet an “overcrowded global village”, there is space to comment all the news, more or less important, deepening inside. But, we can’t forget that in this world, mass media already control almost all the information that we hear, and in Internet we give the popularity to these events according to the relevance and the social impact that they cause, being the events more and less ephemeral, owing to the impact in the society, as we have said.

The new era of journalism

Future in journalism is one of the main themes of this profession. This kind of discussions have proclaimed that internet is the future of almost all journalism, and other media like TV, radio or newspapers will be adapted to Internet and global needs in a nearer future than we thought.

But, how can we regulate the real journalism? It is not a clear answer about this, since take a strictly control in all wikis, blogs or all media who send information is practically impossible. However, we can select these sources who exposed information or data contrasted with reality and more reliable sources (newspapers, blogs of professional journalists, etc.). Journalism is characterized by a continue improvement of interest to know, accept challenges and try to find the truth, and if it isn’t possible, the most objective point of view. To sum up, find the news.

Undeniably, nowadays one of the most relevant sources of information are social networks. We are talking about webs like Twitter, Facebook, and lesser extent Tuenti. Social networks have made a revolutionary innovation in terms of view the journalism and relations in the society between citizens. Now, information is free and available to everyone who have computer, Internet or can access to these platforms. The perfect example is Twitter, the social network that today use 200 million people, whose method is so simply like short comments, analysing and “twitting” about present events. Ramón Trecet, journalists of Marca and Radio 3, said in a conference: “Actually, I don’t need newspapers; I’m served in Twitter about all of the different daily news in sports, investigation and different events”. Nevertheless, we have to mention that people who provide most information in social nets have read it before in mass media like TV’s, newspapers or radio, but, these declarations shows the future of journalism, Internet is a dynamic media where information and notices are always in movement, and we have to select those who lay down good sources behind them.

So, a journalist, can do anything against these boom of information? It is really necessary to be a journalist, study journalism, when a lot of people who have got no knowledge about the career are being paid for it? In my opinion, journalism is not only skills, each good journalist has to protect and use a minimum knowledge to develop his profession correctly, is unreasonable provide bad information to the public. Journalism is changing, the new generations have to adapt to the future properly, and is basic to be objective and original to encourage the profession, go a bit far away the world around us, basically, try to find the news.