Being friends with Barack Obama. Showing your buddies on Erasmus or back home how you passed your weekends. Hanging on the phone for nearly free for hours with your love who temporarily lives at the other end of the world. It is no longer a strange reality nowadays: new media rule the world.

While reading any online newspaper –The Voice too— you can post your resume on LinkedIn or a similar site to let yourself be spotted by any kind of headhunter. It is clear: digitalization, intertwines more and more with everyday reality. Until the 1980s media primarily relied upon printed newspapers and magazines and analog broadcast models such as radio and television. The last 25 years however, numerous changes have taken place. The rapid digitalization and the definitive and democratic breakthrough of the Internet make sure there is no way back. However, we should never close our eyes for the (few) negative consequences of this rapid digitalization process.
In 1999, the writer Andrew L. Shapiro, allready stated that “the emergence of new, digital technologies signaled a potentially radical shift of who is in control of information, experience and resources”. Indeed, about a decade later, in full digital revolution, not only ‘real’ journalists are making the news. Millions of people have blogs, take part in social networks such as Facebook, Netlog and the latest curiosity: Twitter. These utilities are to a large extent used for fun only, as entire tribes of people spend not only their working day but also their evenings online. Sometimes however, these funny applications become important news sources. This happens for example, when journalists are not allowed to come in certain areas. We followed the revolution in Iran via Twitter, being entirely independent on those small texts sent out by people at the spot. The offensive in South-Waziristan, Afghanistan, cannot be followed by professional journalists either, as they are not allowed to go there. Consequently, the only reliable messages we get from inside, are from the locals via digital media.
However, with all the enthusiasm for the democratisation of the media and the news, sometimes things go wrong too. The Belgian Press Agency Belga for example; recently launched the site ihavenews.be for the Belgian public to participate in the newsmaking process. Everybody who witnesses any kind of event can in Twitter-size (max. 160 characters) post it. You can even upload a picture. Leave your name, phone number and address so that the newsroom that picks it up can contact you. So maybe they will call you and you have a scoop! Sounds cool eh? However, within 24 hours after activation of the site, Belgian queen Fabiola had been wrongly declared dead by the national media.
This example makes it very clear that checking sources should never be forgotten, especially not when it is no longer only professional journalists who pick up news. Sadly enough, all kinds of pressure –tight deadlines, stress— force journalists to leave the checking part out of their activities. Studies among Western-European journalists show that only 7% of their time is dedicated to verifying, checking and double checking… Without any doubt a lamentable evolution.
Digitilization and a society that needs to go faster and faster, very well, but let us not forget about quality. Creating a hype and mass hysteria is not difficult, but often unnecessary. |