On February 1st, five radio station representatives will embark on a 5 day experiment in the Perigord Region of Southern France. They will be staying in a farmhouse where they will be isolated from all sources of traditional media and instead only granted access to Twitter and Facebook. The goal of the project is to understand the legitimacy of news from social networking and micro-blogging sites. Language. Social media allow us to access worldwide events faster than ever before from multiple perspectives however, even in this new global information exchange not everyone speaks the same language. Look at the experiment participants' Twitter accounts and you will notice it’s all in French. My high school French c’est terrible, therefore following this in real time n’est pas un option. Even though the web is in fact world wide, the language barriers on Twitter and Facebook still pose a problem when gathering information.
Real Time. Unlike newspapers where you have to wait until the next day to learn of yesterday's news or even, heaven forbid, until the evening 6 o'clock news, social media has the advantage of watching an event unfold in real time. Traditional media relies on the information being passed from the source to the reporter to the editor back to the reporter to the public. Social media lets the public access the initial information much faster than the now-dated multi-step process. The reader can be tipped off at the same time as the reporter. However, social media is full of information and you pay the price of speedy news with the risk of inaccuracies. While the public now has access to an event as it unfolds, I personally make sure to wait until a trusted news source reports the story before calling it fact.
In addition to simply reporting the news, traditional media outlets provide interpretation and analysis, unlike social media’s short matter-of-fact messages. Social media can be seen as a summary of what's happening, while traditional media provides the commentary and details. The 5-day isolation experiment had me questioning how I'd do in that situation. Would I have an accurate picture of the world's events if my only source of information was Twitter and Facebook? Or is the story in the details only traditional media can provide by way of an experienced journalist? Or have we entered a new generation where Facebook and Twitter are the new morning newspaper?