It is a matter of concern if social media despite the fact that it is helping many in growing businesses, raising social causes and even serving as a tool between mainstream and traditional media.
A divide created by technology has created a situation where the traditional media is scouting for its place while a large chunk of social media and new media suffers from a crisis of credibility. You cannot call them the victims, but the common people are bewildered between ‘buy or not to buy’ and ‘believe or not to believe.’
How media would have evolved to emerge as one of the oldest professions of humankind might be interesting for people to understand, but the transition that the media is facing today had never been so challenging.
The genuine among both are struggling to survive.
Traditional media in the forms of print, electronic and radio, work under certain guidelines, while some enterprising professionals of these mediums choose to follow their own individual paths setting up social media forums. Due to their training in traditional media, they are still maintaining media ethics while highlighting genuine issues based on the right evidence.
In between, there are people who are self-styled ‘social media campaigners’ without any liability of guidelines or ethics, but keep on posting on social media whatever they think or get from any unverified sources.
Some of them have their own vested interests in propagating an agenda, thus posing a great challenge in front of the genuine media players as they are bound by certain responsibilities of posting substances only after proper scrutiny backed by evidence.
The time now is to think out of the box and enter into partnerships with national and international media organisations.
Looking for solutions should not be left only to the governments, as something ‘fake’ affects everyone.
“Cross-checking information with credibility and posting them on the right platforms would reduce people’s consideration for unreliable sources,” said a blogger with a deep interest in environment, nature and culture.
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