Journalism and the Fight to Remain Relevant

Recent technological advances and the rapid development of social media brought forth a new force in terms of information distribution and published content. Mobile devices have created the concept of the active audience and now literally anyone can create and publish content. According to Adornato (2018), the gatekeeping concept has completely changed in recent times because of the active audience principle. In which, “editors, news directors, producers, and journalist no longer have sole control over content that makes it through the gates” (P. 6).

These new developments have caused a stir amongst journalists and networks alike. On the upside vital information tends to make it out faster than ever before, the downside journalists are scrambling to come up with the most relevant information as fast as possible.

Creating a balance between journalism and social media has become an art of its own. In the midst of the chaos and overload of information journalist make sense of it all. They no longer just write to convey information. They now have to actively engage with their audience while conveying their message or story. Informing people while actively fighting to stay relevant amongst content creators and other journalist can be a vigorous task but the ones that manage it are truly taking social media by a storm. For instance I recently came upon an Australian reporter, Kristina Costalos, who has managed to make her work the center point of a booming YouTube channel and TikTok profile in which she follows and reports on current events while actively engaging with the younger audience found in those platforms, like her there are many other journalist jumping on bandwagons and the latest craze creating content that captivates the attention of their audience and reaches millions of people worldwide.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJAFJpqA/