Social media the “new” news source?

Last evening I was looking at Facebook and was stunned to see all the status updates popping up about Michael Jackson being dead. I immediately switched over to Boston.com to see what exactly people were talking about. Surely enough – breaking news showed MJ found dead. Shocking after the morning’s news that Charlie’s Angel star Farrah Fawcett died yesterday as well.

Even more shocking though was the fact that once again my first inkling of breaking news came from a source other than a traditional news source. Facebook and Twitter seem to increasingly be the  most instantaneous sources of the latest and greatest. Social media provides many functions, only one of which is the dissemination of “news”. But with all the filtering we can do through social media and the targeting of information I wonder is this good for us? What do we miss if we allow our social media outlets to become our only outlets? And what does this mean for traditional news sources?

I’ve had this conversation recently with people and it’s definitely a topic that raises its pros and cons. In this day of uber-personalization people love social media for its capabilities of filtering and targeting the world. Your world is as large or small as you choose to make it. You determine the input of information you recieve. Is this driving us to a self-centered view of the world though? What real news actually gets through? Is it only the sensational and pop news? I wonder, considering I’ve seen many status updates about MJ and Jon and Kate, but yet not one in the Boston area about tough topics such as the ruling to end life support for a victim of child abuse. Am I to believe no one cared about this situation? That the divore of a reality television family affects us more?

And what of the traditional news sources? What does this mean for them if they become a second-hand disseminator of details? What changes may they have to make in their approach to keep up with the changing times? I’ve seen sites like Boston.com, my usual news source, start being an aggregator of tweets on events to lure users to them. It’s an interesting tactic, but will it be enough? And what will develop from this new idea of the “citizen journalist“?  Remember the Hudson River plane crash recently? It hit Twitter first with live reports and photos from so called citizen journalists. Is this good for us? Will it help provide a wider and less biased opinion? Or will we find ourselves having to wade through unedited spam to find decent informaton?

Interesting questions I think as we continue to move forward in the social media realm.

New column! Putting Together a Production: A Rehearsal Strategy for Design

My new column in the Dramatic Impact series was published June 8th. Find it here http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/06/putting-together-a-production-a-rehearsal-strategy-for-design.php.

Join me as I discuss why UX design should be like a rehearsal process – with iterative phases that progressively build the final product.

After take a look at Kevin Rapley’s further thoughts on the iterative concept and comic prototypes/storyboards  – Iterative process and the need for play making in design.

Previous UXmatters columns

For those who are interested, complete list of Dramatic Impact columns.

Putting Together a Production: A Rehearsal Strategy for Design

Dramatic Impact—A column by Traci Lepore—June 2009 (4) Comments

Stage Directions Meet Functional Specifications: They Have a Lot in Common

Dramatic Impact—A column by Traci Lepore—March 2009 (0) Comments

The UX Designer’s Place in the Ensemble: Directing the Vision

Dramatic Impact—A column by Traci Lepore—December 2008 (2) Comments

What Place Does Theater Have in the Creative Process of Design?

Dramatic Impact—A column by Traci Lepore—September 2008 (4) Comments

and in Ask UXmatters…

Evangelizing UX Across an Entire Organization

Ask UXmatters—A column by Janet M. Six—March 2009 (1) Comments