Presentation Blog Post

Media Sphere

I decided to focus on group two's presentation for my blog post this week. The group presented many concepts I found very interesting including the mainstream media, the alternative media, an echo chamber, a whistleblower, a confidential source, and citizen journalism. I want to discuss the main different types of media that a present today, the mainstream media and alternative media.  Mainstream media is what we usually think of when we think of "the media". It can be found on many different channels including the internet, print, audio, and video. It is traditionally known as more reliable than social media and has greater credibility. Some examples of mainstream media include the New York Times, Fox News and CNN. However, in recent years many of these sources have lost a great amount of credibility through the publication of fake news. Many forms of mainstream media as still trying to fix their damaged reputation. To contrast the mainstream media there is the alternative media. The alternative media can also take different channels to distribute information including audio, video, and print. The alternative media's goal is to give people both sides of the story, whereas the mainstream media may just be presenting one side. These are great sources to use as they cover important stories which the mainstream media may not cover at all. One example of this is the War going on in Yemen currently. I also want to touch on the concept of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is produced by any citizen who reports news and spreads information online. The platforms most popular for citizen journalism are blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. Something I did not realize is many news companies will look to find leads for stories on social media first. This is due to citizen journalism usually being the first to report on breaking news with eye witness accounts and sometimes first-hand videos of a news story. However, it is essential to fact check any of these sources because anyone could be lying when the post something online. You can read more about the rise of citizen journalism by clicking here!