User:Vanessa Howard/My sandbox

Journalism is in a state of crisis; as the speed and diversity of the Internet take centre stage, and everyday citizens voice their opinions through blogs and social media websites, the vitality of the role of the professional journalist is questionable. The debate about whether print journalism, in particular newspapers, has a lasting future remains unresolved, and both advocates and abolitionists of print journalism alike are uncertain of the effects that the decline of newspaper popularity will have on society. For the past three hundred years, the newspaper has had a paramount role in the democratization of information, allowing citizens far and wide to become knowledgable in areas such as business, athletics, entertainment, real-estate and foreign news. Today, with the introduction of social media networking sites such as Facebook, society has a new platform through which it obtains news. When comparing the two forms of communication media, it is clear that Facebook trumps newspapers in both community relevance and the dissemination of information; The New York Times has even proclaimed that “Facebook is... positioning itself to become the conduit through which news and entertainment is found and consumed...”. But newspapers are not becoming obsolete without a fight. Canada's Newspaper Audience Databank Inc. states that the circulation of French and English newspapers reached over 5.7 million in 1989, while today, about 5.2 million Canadians receive a daily newspaper. A decline of 500,000 may seem like a hefty figure, but since the mid-1990s, the internet has become increasingly popular and has had a tremendous impact on culture and commerce, making the 500,000 person decrease in Canadian daily newspaper circulation seem less drastic. Thus, while many are quick to assume that the birth of social media networking websites is accompanied by the decrease in the circulation of newspapers, in reality, Facebook serves as merely an additive to the already established and well-respected world of print journalism, specifically newspapers.

The Liaison Between Facebook and Newspapers
The dissemination of information is now-a-days commonly associated with the Internet. Since the advent of the information age, the way in which people access news has been expanded to search engines, social networking sites, handheld devices, blogs and instant messaging; they are accessing and processing information in ways that challenge the historic function of the news industry and raise fundamental questions about the future of the news field. Consequently, new forms of news-gathering and distribution, primarily citizen journalism and blogging sites, are changing the nature of who produces news. But this has not stopped traditional newspapers from adapting to technological advances. Of paramount importance are the possibilities online integration might provide for newspapers. Relevance is a central theme to both the content shared on social networks and the community publication. Facebook offers newspapers an already established audience that is already connected to their desired demographic. The recognition by newspapers of the importance of tapping into Facebook's community is pivotal, as Facebook is precisely where their readers are finding, sharing and discussing the relevant content that the papers look to uphold.

Most North American newspapers, from The New York Times and the Globe and Mail, to lesser known papers such as the Onion, have a substantial online presence. The Onion, an American satire organization, for example, has over 1 million “likes” on its Facebook page. Newspapers create pages on Facebook and post links to popular articles that, when clicked, lead readers to the formal websites of that newspaper. Also present on these pages are information sections where readers can gain knowledge of the history of the newspaper along with its goals. The information provided by The New York Time's Facebook page states that its aim on Facebook is to “create a space where readers can exchange intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information”. Newspapers post links to their formal websites, as well as to videos, photos and events that are pertinent to current news and can add to the value of an article, on their Facebook pages. Thus, it isn't just necessary for media outlets to build a better website anymore - they must build engaging content that can appear on Facebook and drive value to their paper.

A Brief History of Facebook
While attending his sophomore year at Harvard University, the now 23 year old Mark Zuckerberg, wrote a successful computer code for a website that has become the most successful social networking site in the world. In February 2004, Zuckerberg launched "the facebook", a site which gained popularity at a rapid pace; within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard students had signed up to the website, and after one month, over half of the undergraduate population had a profile. The network was quickly extended to other Boston universities, the Ivy League and eventually all U.S. universities. Zuckerberg enlisted the help of his fellow students: Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes to help promote the website. In the summer of 2004, entrepreneur Sean Parker joined the Facebook team, becoming the company's president. In August 2005 Zuckerberg purchased the domain "facebook.com" for $200,000. In September of the same year, the website became available to US high schools. Shortly after, it went global, reaching United Kingdom universities by October 2005. By September 2006, anyone with a registered email address was able to join the network. As of January 2011, facebook.com has 596,371,760 users worldwide.

In November 2010, it was reported by SecondMarket Inc. that Facebook's value was $41 billion, which makes it the third largest U.S. Web company after Google and Amazon. Today, the site remains free to join, and makes a profit through advertising revenue.

Facebook as a Global Phenomenon
Unlike more traditional sources of news, such as daily regional newspapers, Facebook has a global reach. As of January 2011, 42 percent of Facebook users reside in America (248.6 million), 27 percent of members inhabit Asia (161.7 million), 25 percent are situated in Europe (152.5 mill), 4 percent live in Africa (22.1 mill) and 2 percent reside in Oceania (11.3 million). The top 5 countries with the highest frequency of Facebook users are as follows: the U.S., Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Turkey and the Philippines. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account, and this number has undoubtedly risen in the past year and a half.

Facebook's global outreach is a large factor of its success. At a time when globalization is more prominent than ever, and interconnectedness between communities is becoming stronger, a site such as Facebook allows for communication worldwide that is necessary to keep populations informed. A great number of newspapers have taken advantage of the communicative opportunities Facebook has offered them; Facebook's global reach allows for regional newspapers, that usually cater news to only a specific group of people in a certain province/state or country, to gain global acknowledgement and popularity. Citizens worldwide can explore a newspaper's Facebook page and be led to articles from abroad, which allows information to reach a larger audience more rapidly.

Facebook and Newspaper Demographics
An interesting aspect of Facebook is its attraction to young people. The site allows anyone who declares themselves 13 or older to become a member; but this doesn't stop those younger than 13 from joining. Based on ConsumersReports.org on May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms of service. Globally, Facebook's popularity is highest among those aged 20-29, followed by ages between 13-19; users within the ages of 30-39 constitute the third most populous group of users, followed by those aged 40-49. The popularity of the site begins to decline for readers approaching their mid 50's onwards. The world average age of a Facebook user is 28.2 years old.

The majority of the major daily newspapers of any country cater to an older, wealthy audience. The Globe and Mail's website claims that its readership demographic is “Canada's thought-leaders and taste makers – those individuals who lead or intend to lead in politics business, the workplace or the home. More importantly, Globe readers have the purchasing power...”. While newspaper's demographic is a sought-after audience, Facebook reaches a much broader assemblage, and Newspaper's have benefitted from establishing a liaison with the social networking site. Facebook is attractive to adults, teenagers and children, and remains free. This allows a completely different audience to access the newspaper's information through Facebook, and acquire information they may have otherwise disregarded as 'bourgeois'.

On the contrary, newspapers are synonymous with tradition and have a rich history; older generations tend to value customs, and may see technology as a means of abandoning tradition. John Cruickshank of the Toronto Star presented an interesting statistic illustrating this point: if one is 75 years old, there is a 75 percent chance of that person being a daily newspaper reader; if one is 50 years old, there is a 50 percent chance of daily readership; and if one is 25 years old, there is a 13 percent chance of daily newspaper consummation. As a result, the popularity of Facebook decreases as its users age. Therefore, newspapers realize the best of both worlds; their online presence gains them a new, younger audience with varying incomes, but at the same time, maintains its target demographic of older people with some form of seniority and wealth.

It is important to note that mainstream daily newspapers are, more often than not, owned by wealthy families, speaking to the middle class and a well-educated audience. In targeting this small percentage of the population, newspapers often neglect including news pertinent to minority cultures. Websites such as Facebook, on the other hand, appeal to a global audience and are inclusive of multiple ethnicities, religions and genders. Through Facebook, immigrants to North America, for example, are able to find news relevant to their newly inhabited country, but also remain informed about the happenings in their homeland, without having to read a specific ethnic newspaper that could potentially be inconsistent with North American values.

Newspaper Circulation
The number of Americans who buy and read a daily paper is not only decreasing, but the time they are spending reading the paper is also lessening. Only 19 percent of Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four claim even to look at a daily newspaper. The average age of the American newspaper reader is fifty-five and is rising. The average reader spends less than fifteen hours a month reading the paper. These figures are perhaps a result of the rapidity of the internet. Young adults are more likely to gather news from social media, as this medium is relative to their generation, and they are well trained on computers meaning they can effectively and quickly obtain information that may take the elderly longer to access online.

Philip Meyer, in his book The Vanishing Newspaper, has a more dismal view on the future of newsprint, predicting that the final copy of the final newspaper will appear on somebody's doorstep one day in 2043.

The Globe and Mail paints a more positive picture of the success of the consummation of newspapers among Canadians in its 2010 annual Audit Bureau Circulation Report. The report stated that the total Globe Circulation on a national level was 310,957 from Monday to Friday, and 377,873 on Saturdays. The weekday figure showed an increase of 1.2 percent from the previous year, and the Saturday statistic displayed a decrease by 0.8 percent from 2009.

Trustworthiness
News media plays an important role in maintaining a balance between the largely opinionated, judgemental and materialistic society of today, and presenting non-biased news. Although traditional newspapers go through an editorial process in which professional reporters and editors attempt to verify their sources and check their accuracy before publishing, it is difficult to distinguish whether news media is reporting independently of the interest of advertisers or corporate ownership.

New emerging social media forms, with Facebook at the forefront, rely on their readership - their community - for quality control. Arriana Huffington of the Huffington Post highlights the ability of bloggers to find the flaws in the mainstream media's reporting of the Iraq war, claiming that they "highlighted the absurdity of the knee jerk comparison of the relative credibility of the so-called MSM and the blogoshpere," and went on, "In the run-up to the Iraq war, many in the mainstream media, including the New York Times, lost their veneer of unassailable trustworthiness for many readers and viewers, and it became clear that new media sources could be trusted - and indeed are often much quicker at correcting mistakes than old media sources." When social media reporters correct their own mistakes, trust is generated because the author is seen as 'real' and readers can relate to the humanity in making mistakes. In addition, the ability of Facebook users to comment on online newspaper articles can potentially validate the article's legitimacy and thus promote trust among readers.

Public assurance in newspapers has been slipping according to a recent study published by Sacred Heart University. The study found that fewer than 20 percent of Americans said they could believe "all or most" media reporting, a figure that has fallen from more than 27 percent just five years ago. "Less than one in five believe what they read in print," the 2007 "State of the News Media" report, issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, concluded. The decreasing trust of newspaper reporting felt by citizens may be due to a number of factors such as inaccurate sources, cynicism and personal political views of editors. On the contrary however, no website spends anything remotely like what the best newspapers do on reporting. The vast majority of reporters and editors have devoted years, even decades, to understanding the subjects of their stories. It is hard to name any bloggers who can match the professional expertise, and the reporting, of, for example, the Post's Barton Gellman and Dana Priest.

Facebook as the Conduit Through Which News and Entertainment is Found and Consumed
Social networking sites are ideal for businesses to engage with their consumers. Users of Facebook can “like” things, comment on pages and engage in ways that printed journalism could hardly fathom. Whereas newspapers contain a 'Letter to the Editor' section where readers can comment and provide feedback to the paper's editors, it can be a lengthy process to send in a comment and wait for feedback. With the internet comes high velocity; feedback is often instantaneous and highly productive and intelligent conversations ensue. Social media has enabled the writers, professional or citizen journalists, to present news on an emotional level. This new dynamic of emotional investment can generate trust in the reader, as writers can make mistakes and self-edit, causing them to be seen relatable and 'real'. But many wonder whether social media has caused people to rely on others' opinions regarding what news is deemed important.

A question worth considering is, if we still need news agencies to deliver the content that sites like Facebook bring to a broader audience, what will the immediate future look like? It is likely that a tight-knit relationship will form between newspapers and social media networking sites, and newspapers may come to rely on websites such as Facebook to expand their audience, incorporate pictures and videos into their stories, establish an emotional connection with readers and the opportunity for interaction and conversation between writers and readership.

Newspapers have created Facebook pages in an attempt to open their newsroom to readers to make them feel as if they are a part of the editorial process. In doing so, their agenda has become somewhat influenced by their readers. Since the advent of social media news reporting, the elitism associated with print journalism has begun to break down, and the process of reporting is becoming more democratic. The website Open File, for example, devotes itself to 'community-powered news', where readers suggest topics for journalists to write about. One of the founders of Open File, Kathy Vay, explains that in the past, newsrooms were closed-off and secretive, as editors were nervous about the theft of intellectual property and story ideas. But over 4 billion pieces of content are shared each day by Facebook, which creates the belief that there is no such thing as ownership of information anymore. And while Facebook offers myriad opportunity for print journalism, newspapers remain important in terms of reinforcing the authority of the news people access through social media. Kathy Vay supports this idea, claiming that Open File's role is to simply shape and aggregate the information for the readers.

Recent reports claim the contrary, stating that as early as May 2004, newspapers had become the least preferred source for news among younger people. According to "Abandoning the News," published by the Carnegie Corporation, 39 percent of respondents under the age of thirty-five told researchers that they expected to use the Internet in the future for new purposes; just 8 percent said that they would rely on a newspaper. The source also distinguishes irony in this fact; when a reader surfs the Web in search of political news he frequently ends up at a site that displays journalistic work that originated in a newspaper, but this fact is not likely to save any newspaper jobs or increase papers' stock valuation. Thus, it is important to notice that although Facebook and other social media generate news and serve as a platform for conversational interaction between writer and reader, most news found on these sites are generated from newspapers.

While both newspapers and Facebook appeal to a broad audience with conflicting values and opinions, many newspapers, in their eagerness to demonstrate a sense of balance and impartiality, do not allow reporters to voice their opinions publicly, march in demonstrations, volunteer in political campaigns, etc. Whereas Newspapers act as a source for the distribution of impersonal information, Facebook allows its members to comment and debate amongst each other. In other words, it is conversational - a means of discussing material that would be presented as hard facts in newspapers. Facebook presents technological and community-building opportunities offered by digital media delivery, including individual blogs, video reports and discussion opportunities for readers. Social media, such as Facebook, also allows for the emergence of citizen journalists, which may create a sense of community and familiarity among readers, and provide citizen's the chance of determining what is to be deemed important and newsworthy. Simply put, the Internet offers editors immediate information about which stories interest readers, provoke comments, are shared with friends and generate the greatest number of web searches.

To sum up the argument that the social media, particularly Facebook, is beneficial to newspapers, but not necessarily the cause of their demise, Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post Website explains that, "People love to talk about the death of newspapers, as if it's a foregone conclusion. I think that the online world isn't the enemy. In fact, it's the thing that will save them, if they fully embrace it". Newspaper's Facebook pages act as a hub for breaking news, features and content that readers may have missed throughout the day. Facebook is also a place where community members may connect with fellow citizens in an intellectual yet social environment. In essence, the web provides a powerful platform that enables the creation of communities where the distribution of information is frictionless, rapid and cheap. Thus, if newspapers realize the full potential of establishing a relationship with Facebook, they will increase their appeal to a wider audience, establish trust between writer and reader and increase the democratization of information by allowing citizens to partake in setting a 'news agenda'.