#Mobilewatch: Facebook is winning ‘The NEWS Battle’
Prince continues to be one of my favorite singers and I still remember when I first heard of his untimely death. My team and I were at the Lenovo offices in North Carolina, and someone mentioned that they saw the news on Facebook. In sheer disbelief I logged in to Facebook to see it for myself, and sure enough, the news of his death was already trending. This was before Facebook started curating their trending news column!
Prince is one of several examples where news first broke on social channels much before news outlets. Here are a few other examples of news that broke in the social ecosystem first:
Award winning singer and actress Whitney Houston’s death in a bathtub first broke on twitter, nearly an hour before any of the news outlets picked it up. In fact, the news of her death was tweeted 2.5 million times in the very first hour. By the time the newspapers picked it up, let’s just say, it was not ‘news’ anymore.
IT worker Sohaib Akhar tweeted about a hovering helicopter above Abbottabad. He then tweeted: “ a huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabadd Cantt. I hope it’s not the start of something nasty”. Sohaib had no idea that he was live-tweeting the Navy SEAL raid on Osama Bin Laden’s house in Pakistan. This was almost 10 hours before any mainstream media picked it up.
There is enough evidence that bad news travels faster, even on social channels, but the breaking of good news has made it as well. Prince William and Princess Catherine used facebook to announce the birth of their first child in 2013. Now that’s royal with a modern twist!
When it comes to the battle of the news, social media is winning it hands down globally. According to a report by the Reuters Institute for the study of Journalism and Oxford University, the Internet is the primary source of news for Americans. In 2018, the Internet beat both, press and television. The study also established this as a global trend, with many getting their news from the Internet in general and from social media in particular. In fact, the Reuters report actually did their research in 30 countries, including UK, Poland and Turkey amongst others.
Another report by the Pew Research Center report said that most get their news either often or sometimes from social media. The top social media sites for news were no surprises with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube topping the list. This list of channels stands even truer for Millennials and Gen Z, who look at YouTube in particular, as their search engine of choice.
Facebook continues to be the dominant site for news, a trend that has only gone up since 2016. Close to 45% of Americans get their news from Facebook. YouTube was next at 21% followed by Twitter at 12%. Other social channels such as Instagram, LinkedIn or Snapchat made up about 8%. It looks like some of the defining factors that made a social network popular for news were its overall popularity (how many people were connected to the channel) and the extent to which people use the channel for news. When the respondents were asked what they liked abut the social media news experience, most spoke about “convenience” and “interaction with other people”.
Social media channels are not the only ones eating away at the news pie. Messaging apps are right there as well, with Whatsapp being one of the popular ones for news. Messaging apps are big in Asia and Latin America, connecting Asians and Latinos around the world, thereby finding a seamless way to share news from their countries of origin. This is something that news outlets in the US may not be doing on a regular basis. Another benefit of messaging apps is that the messages are encrypted, so people can share news (and their opinions about the news) more freely.
I remember hearing about famous Indian actress Sridevis’ death in Dubai, UAE, exactly a year ago, on Whatsapp first. In sheer disbelief, I then went on Google to try and find a news outlet that could confirm it. It was a while before the news outlets caught up with the social channels.
So why are social channels winning the battle for news? Is it because the news on these channels is already curated and digested? The opinions are formed and people are already talking about it with sides taken, and hashtags to boot? Perhaps. Now add to that, the powerful multiplying effect of global connectivity. The recent presidential elections in Brazil are a great example. People all over the globe had already formed an opinion about Jair Bolsonaro without knowing any other nuance surrounding the election in Brazil.
Although, more of us globally are getting our news from social channels, what we are really getting are news headlines. So, then, why do we still continue using social for our news? One explanation emerges from information theory and Bayesian decision theory: People thrive on novelty. Novelty attracts human attention, contributes to productive decision-making while encouraging information sharing. By doing this, it updates our overall understanding of the world. Social has been able to deliver information as novel, surprising and therefore more valuable (it conveys social status that one is ‘in the know,’ or has access to unique ‘inside’ information).
A study by Cornell shows that facebook has literally helped shrink the world, bringing the 6 degrees of separation rule down to 3.57 globally. In the US, the number is even lower at 3.46 degrees. With facebook connecting more than 2.4 billion monthly active users, its no surprise that many at many as 45% are getting their news from fb. I believe this connectivity statistic is very critical when it comes to news and one that media outlets will have a hard time competing with, for many reasons.
Even the biggest news outlets in the world are not as globally connected as facebook. Which means that their ability to ‘break news’ will be limited. I, personally, do not see social media as a news outlet. I see them as social networks where news spreads quickly. It’s a great place to break ‘news’ but hardly a setting for a ‘news story’. I am no journalist, but even I know that there is more to a story than a fb headline or a tweet. The ground work, the facts, the opinion of leaders and of course, the conclusion, all make for an immersive journalistic experience; one that I believe can only be delivered today by iconic news outlets such as BBC, The New York Times or The Washington Post.
Perhaps, then, just like in any digital ecosystem, news outlets need to understand the role of ‘social channels’. The news outlets will never win the ‘who brought it to you first’ battle, because the most connected networks will always win that. However, if the news outlets stuck to what they know best, they may be able to hold their ground. Netflix may have learnt the art of making Oscar-worthy movies, but no social channel has been able to offer award-winning and note-worthy journalism, yet.
The battle for news will continue with social channels becoming the source of all things considered ‘news’. The worry about fake news is real and we all need to be cognizant of what is ‘real’ and how it is influencing our decisions. The need to get there first has come at the price of spelling mistakes and badly worded sentences, even on the first page of CNN. 20 years ago, somebody could have lost his or her job for that. Cutting corners for speed is not my philosophy. In fact, even more so now, I believe there is reason to do things with intent and purpose. In a highly-connected, smaller world, we tend to feel every tremor, every tsunami and every election whether it is taking place in the US, in Brazil or in India. All the more reason to pause and rethink before ‘sharing’, ‘liking’ or ‘retweeting’. After all, in the social world, with our behavior, not only are we consuming news but helping make it.
Join me every week, as we navigate these ever-changing waters to make sense of this ‘always-on’ consumer and the technologies that define their everyday. I will be bringing you insights from some of the sharpest global minds in the industry as well as in academia. And do join the conversation.
Until next week
Anika
A seasoned Advertising and Digital expert, Anika has worked across countries and continents and spoken at companies such as Google and universities such as NYU. She is currently Professor of Business at NYU’s Stern School of Business, teaching Digital, Social and Mobile Marketing. Follow Anika on twitter @anikadas or on Medium.
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