According to a recent Pew Internet report, the number of adults using social networking Web sites such as Facebook and Myspace has more than quadrupled in the past four years. Though this has put countless teenagers in an extremely awkward position, the increase is a good thing for young journalists, presenting exciting new opportunities as these sites become more functional in convergent media presentations.
Though the media have already been experimenting with using social networking sites for news events, such as last year's presidential race, the sites have generally been used to represent the voice of America's youth. This comes with good reason, as the Pew report shows that 65 percent of online American teens use these sites.
But the rapid increase in adult users means that when the media use data from social networking Web sites, it does not just represent young people; it speaks for everyone. And this will only become more accurate in the future, as the number of adult users continues to grow.
The use of social networking sites will allow multimedia
news organizations to enhance their presentations. News Web sites
are currently able to instantly provide audio, photo and video to users, but
social networking sites have the potential provide even more: the opinions,
ideas and reactions of millions of people.
Last Tuesday, CNN used Facebook's Connect feature, which allows Facebook users to include their profile data on other Web sites, in its coverage of the presidential inauguration with great success.
If the CNN staff wanted to, they could use the Facebook Lexicon program to follow up with information on how the public has reacted to President Barack Obama's first few days in office. Since January 20, his sentiment score has been more than 80 percent, meaning that out of all conversations on Facebook mentioning President Obama, 80 percent spoke of him favorably.
Social networking sites will allow journalists to incorporate their audience into news coverage more than ever before, and allow the the public to see how the people around them feel about what is going on the world. To me, that is something to be excited about.
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