New media in line with journalism: characteristics, opportunities and challenges

New media is utilized to portray content made accessible utilizing distinctive types of electronic correspondence made conceivable using PC innovation. For the most part, the expression new media portrays content accessible on-request through the Internet. In simpler terms new media can be giving out information or rather spreading information via the internet.

Forms of new media

Information in blogs is effortlessly gotten to and hunt down, and everything is commonly composed normally. For example, blog entries are regularly settled under classifications, and users can explore posts by a particular classification or tag or by means of a hunt. Social media life focuses on making, sharing and trading data, thoughts and substance in online systems and networks. Exceedingly intuitive, web based life is a type of new media that depends intensely on the support of clients to offer some incentive. E. g.:

Facebook is a person to person communication website that makes it simple for you to interface and offer with your family and companions on the web, initially intended for students, but now a great’s source of information for journalist.

Twitter is on online news and social networking site where people communicate in short messages called tweets.

And others include – LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest.

Characteristics of new media in line with journalism:

1. Interactive -Two way communication where the journalist gets feedback from the audience
2. Easy to access and put out information-the audience can easily get the information as it easily given by the journalist
3. Digital – Media information is changed into binary codes. Binary code enables individuals to get to information in a way that is less demanding and speedier. Everything computerized is comprised of Binary Code – or ones. The information can be found as a yield. As a yield shape it can be viewed as online sources, advanced plates, or memory drives. These yields are to be decoded and gotten as on the display of screens.
4. Hyper textual – It is a reference to non-consecutive associations between a wide range of information encouraged by the PC. It is likewise a vital piece of the historical backdrop of processing, particularly in the way that hypertext address thoughts regarding the connection of PC task frameworks, programming, and databases to the activities of the human personality.

Opportunities of new media in journalism

Instant feedback

Before advanced was above all else and web based life turned into a power to be figured with, media organizations basically knew the score: You’d push out substance to you’re per users and expectation, with your fingers crossed, that it had an effect. A few per users may compose letters to the editorial manager, yet that was about the main way they needed to cooperate. Nowadays, your gathering of people is arguing much of the time, on various channels. You can enlighten a ton concerning your readership, or client base, by taking a gander at which content circulated around the web – be it a blog entry or a YouTube video – or produced the most astounding number of remarks, or which specific substance helped you gain new clients. By concentrate the information painstakingly, you can improve your substance methodology. Expanded commitment gives you the chance to refine methodologies through testing, enabling you to streamline substance and procurement techniques in light of the outcomes.

Accessibility

This is in that information for journalist and also the readers is easily accessible. Anyone can have it. For journalist if it is for a news story for research first of all one gets to search the internet on that particular story then goes out to make more research on it.

Realism

New media accommodates a more intelligent and outwardly empowering knowledge. Brings in different opinion from other people refreshing ideas n argument points. That’s why journalist now troll new media like twitter to get news. it doesn’t mean the real data/announcing ought to be ignored. With such a large number of sketchy stories and “ realities” introduced on the web, it is fundamental that columnists keep up their honesty and satisfy their moral objective of endeavoring to show reality.

Job opportunities

New media additionally opens up more entryways for writers to independent or even begin their own particular online production. This may fall on the free-lance journalist. New media has made journalism easier for now any one can report without being a must to be employed by certain media companies. Many people now get their daily bread by using new media and freelancing and then selling their stories to media houses

Get stories from online

Now and again, journalist are enlivened by posts and tweets they read and leave away with a decent story thought or a few subjects to meet for an up and coming piece. Example the famous Githeri man. He was a social media sensation and yet it brought journalist to investigate and get the story about that person

Promoting media

Online newspapers, magazines, websites and newswires can also increase their readership/viewership through promoting themselves via social media. Even print publications can increase their audience through creating an online presence. Most newspapers like Nation and Standard group have now departments were news or information is given out online and not only relying on their TV and print way of dispersing news.

Updating of stories

With new tech of new media now a journalist can update a story at any given time. Maybe he or she has got or gathered new information. This helps journalist not be constrained with limited time and space New media reaches a wider audiences. With day and age every person is on their phone. The taste of getting information from TVs and Newspaper keeps diminishing. Journalist use the new media to reach a higher percentage of the audience to which they are the youths.

Recognition.

New media especially the blogging world has brought in recognition for journalist who sees fit to post out their stories. With such recognition may be an advantage for the journalist for it brings in credibility. For example, Patrick Gathara who runs a blog on issues of the country political. His blog has earned him the best governor blog post.

New media like twitter can help a journalist search for sources. Twitter can in any case enable you to discover sources. Utilize the propelled look capacity to scan for individuals in your locale utilizing catchphrases that may show intrigue or aptitude in the point you’re investigating. Or on the other hand check a hashtag identified with the subject you’re taking a shot at and check whether a portion of the general population tweeting on the point may be useful sources. Or then again you can scan for names or watchwords in the profiles of Twitter clients, searching for individuals who work for the organization you’re expounding on or for a particular individual you won’t have the capacity to reach by telephone but rather who’s tweeting about what you’re covering

New media has made most journalist better journalist. With is that with the instant feedback some may be critics and with such comments journalist take the opportunity to improve on their reporting. The accommodating feedback improves you a columnist and your grateful reaction constructs a significant association, not simply with the faultfinder but rather with other people who see and appreciate.

New media gives opportunity for the investigative reporters to be anonymous. Not only them but also their sources. In that no one has to know their identities due to the sake of their lives

Challenges

Journalist may get a lot of information via new media until it becomes overwhelming. What’s more, journalist who tweet every now and again all through the work day may find that they never again have enough time to legitimately report and compose stories. Since they are busy either defending their tweets or staying on an issue for so long.

New media can be distracting to journalist. This is in that basically new media has to do with the internet, a journalist may start off genuinely looking for valid information but then end up in Facebook updating his account or other social sites

Internet based life can empower obliviousness as a few writers don’t read any longer, and depend on data they get from the social media. It likewise bargains the nature of the journalist that we have, since it is presently less demanding for anybody to end up a journalist. It can trade off morals, and furthermore can be an inconsistent wellspring of information.

Citizen journalism can be a vice in journalism. This implies subject media of citizen journalism ought to be checked and re-checked for precision to create news that is appropriate to print. As should be obvious, anybody nowadays can record and compose anything and afterward introduce it as truth, so recall that we are managing people here, and it is our temperament to alter data to our own liking, which can make informal news inconsistent.

The good thing about conventional media is that you by and large put significantly additional time and exertion into detailing, altering, and showing stories. They experience numerous emphases before being distributed, and about each emphasis improves them. What you lose in amount, you frequently make up in quality. With new media journalist just write n post at the comfort of where they are not worrying about editors or gatekeepers since they are none. That loss of editors brings in aspect of very poorly done stories.

Inaccuracy. Information given out online or rather via new media by the sources may be in accurate and misleading. And since journalist get to lazy to confirm such news you find that stories at times may be in accurate and misleading Biasness. In this is that a journalist would only be writing stories that the reader wants. Sometimes even writing a story that is only one-sided which everyone agrees so as he/ she may not loose readers.

Literacy. Using new media at times may not be all that easy in that most of the time some social platforms come up with ne upgrades and you find you don’t know how to use it or it takes time for to get in line in such upgrades. Journalist in Kenya may at times find this a hard step especially the not so young journalist which brings me to my next point.

New media bring in an age gap of journalist. In that the aged can find it difficult to keep up with the new media advancement and upgrades s they stick to traditional. As much as they want to participate in the new media they find it hard.

Anti-social behavior. Journalist spends more time in consumed in new media than in reality. In that they cut themselves off from the outside world. Kenya it’s a common behavior were you see everyone is on their phones or someone using to phones at the same time. For journalist this behavior can be common since they would always be checking their phones even when conversing with someone.

Easily manipulated. You get to find. Journalists that may be in their blogs especially on politics they only favor one person and his or her agendas due to maybe favor or bribe. With the lack of company policy or gate keeper a journalist may write and post whatever he or she likes.

Conclusion

Truth is told there are way lots of advantages using the new media since it’s an advancement from the traditional way. It has given journalist to bring back their glory which was long thought dead. But as much as there a lot of advantages we can not only rely on the gadgets of the new media technology. Us who use them, journalist, determine their worth I this is that as much as the technology of new media is up to date and better and the journalist does misuses that power then the news world is still at risk.