I’m wondering if one of the reason why consumers are so engaged in social media is because they offer a new type of entertainment/media environment.
I can see some advantages for a consumer compared to traditional media:
a- you’re exposed to a advertising-free context – you don’t HAVE TO go through advertsiging to get your content,
b- the editor is your friends, they become your source of information. Chances are high that you share common interests with your friends, right? So you end up being in an environment, a “media” where everything you’re exposed to fit what you’re interested in or looking for.
The more friends you have, the more you cover your interests in life, they share with you what might appeal to you. So why bothering with an online media, or event worst, a “traditional” media when you get access to everything you like in your social networking site.
And on top-of-it it’s FREE, 24/7 and portable.
How can “medias” compete with that? I truly believe by coming back to the DNA of journalism, by not passing on an information but by analyzing it, complementing it, enriching it. By adding value to a news and place it back to a context, geographical, social, economical, historical, by changing the news into information.
