Should ‘old’ media reflect social #trends?

A piece of research out today claims ‘old’ media is not giving people what they want, based on an analysis of social media and online trends.

But doesn't this miss the point of the differences which exist between them?

The beauty of online media – and social media – is that we can get the news we want and can be a part of the conversations that interest us.

But some may say the problem with online media – and social media - is that we can get only the news we want and be a part of only those conversations that interest us.

This isn’t just bad for people’s world view or pub quiz general knowledge, it can also deny us those moments of wonderful serendipity that are such a part of reading a newspaper cover to cover.

Serendipity

Serendipity is a tough sell though as is the notion we should be prescribed news in these days of democratised social media. People were turned off ‘old media’ because it didn’t cover everything – or sometimes anything - that interested them. As such it's easy to see why those disenfranchised by a limited and prescribed menu of content headed online in search of niche and specific and those conversations they cared about.

But then Big Media has cottoned on to a degree, starting to draw ever-more content from social media, and drawing upon the online zeitgeist to shape the content it wants to feed back into the online frenzy.

Hence so many iPad stories.

This would seem common sense of course. Today’s Twitter #trend is tomorrow’s news story but don't we need the media to challenge us - and push the conversations on - not simply cater for what we've already said we want?

Twitter

If we go to see a popular band in concert we all want to hear the songs we already know. But if bands stopped writing new material we'd have stagnation. Likewise if the media stuck to the debates, issues and stories they already know are popular, then we end up with stagnation. 

A piece of research out today from media monitoring agency Kantar claims social media and ‘old’ media are still worlds apart.

And to me that sounds a good thing.

Of course newspapers shouldn't allow themselves to become irrelevant but nor should we assume Twitter trends are representative of anything other than what people are discussing on Twitter. Nor should we assume what people discuss on Twitter is all that interests them or the only perspective they want to see on an issue or story.

The example Kantar uses is the coverage of the Comprehensive Spending Review last week.

Kantar studied thousands of print articles, and millions of online comments and found ‘old’ media discussed (in order of prevalence):

1. Welfare cuts   
2. Higher education funding   
3. Public sector job cuts   
4. Housing   
5. Defence   

Meanwhile, social media discussed:

1. Banks
2. Higher education funding
3. Police
4. BBC
5. Museums/art

But it would be wrong to confuse ‘what people discussed’ within the still fairly unrepresentative constituency of social media with what the media should cover. 

It would only take particularly active communities around one issue – or even one super-connected blogger or Tweeter - to skew the assumed relevance to the broader population.

Philip Lynch, evaluation director at Kantar Media is quoted as saying: "The differences between online debate and what the press covered were quite polarised. It is a complex media environment in the UK, and our findings highlight the gap between what newspapers consider important, and what people actually want to talk about."

I know social media has an ever broader and more inclusive constituency with each passing day but I think it’s still far too early to start suggesting today’s trending topics should inform this evenings running order on the News At Ten.

There’s only so much Justin Bieber news we could take.

Comments

[Tomexy]

Both styles, Old and New Media have their advantages and disadvantages. At the expense of sounding cliched, a convergence of both forms is the best option. That way, tradtional media maintains its relevance, while at the same time engaging with an online media platform. And the Audience get the best of both worlds.

[Philip Lynch]

social media offers a wider constituency of opinion, and has no remit to be a title of record, so variance between blogs, forums etc and the editorial line of newspapers is to be expected. However, the gap between social and mainstream on the issue of the CSR was interesting - in placing the emphasis on the role of the banks, social was examining the cause of the problem, whereas mainstream was focused on the symptom.