Velocity of News Spread through Social Networking

Source: Bea, 2012

Kony 2012: once information goes viral, there’s no stopping it

Social networking has become one of the main motives people accessed to the internet daily. It gains a lot of popularity from the people which helps connects people, news and everything globally. The information provided fulfills the people’s needs and sometimes it has gone over limits which bring leak information. According to Pring (2012) research stating that social networking is still the fastest-growing active social media behavious online, increasing from 36% of global internet users to 59% managing their profile on a monthly basis by the end of 2011.

Recently, the ‘Kony 2012’ video has captured billions of eyes viewing this issue. It explains on the cruelness of children soldiers as slaves and being abused in Ugandan. The idea of this campaign used social media to inform public about the news which proven the strength of social media on development work and social movements succeeded (dwightronan 2012). The video news being spread all over via social media such as Facebook and Twitter which currently hold the largest population of people accessing through internet. Many critics and arguments discussed throughout the internet which attracts a lot of attention from the public. Social media also plays an important role here by which people sending feedbacks through Twitter or sharing the videos on Facebook. This causes a big issue where the internet holds a larger priority influencing others compared to the mainstream media.

Source: Dye, 2012

The interactivity and immediacy are what differentiates social media from the traditional media. Karlsson (2011, p.279) emphasizes that immediacy means that different provisory, incomplete and sometimes dubious news drafts are published...both user participation and immediacy have an impact on what is being published. It explains that bad news is always the fastest to be influenced. Users tend to trust unreliable news rather than proven facts.

To conclude, the video of ‘Kony 2012’ thrilled whole world’s attention through social media. This proves that social media is the massive key of communication. Without the growth of social media, the acknowledgement of news information would not be transferred easily to the people. 

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References:

Dwightronan 2012, On Kony and the Use of Social Media in Social Movements, viewed 5 June 2012, < http://dwightronan.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/on-kony-and-the-use-of-social-media-in-social-movements/>.

Karlsson, M 2011, ‘The immediacy of online news, the visibility of journalistic processes and a restructuring of journalistic authority,’ Sage Publication Journals, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 279-295.

Pring, C 2012, 100 more social media statistics for 2012, viewed 5 June 2012, < http://thesocialskinny.com/100-more-social-media-statistics-for-2012/>.