Collective Action and Social Movements

Why do people join into a social movement? Who do people place their trust into when they join those movements? Those are a couple of questions asked when people look at how and who is putting a message or call to action out into the world. With the rise of social media, people have a one stop shop for information of protests going on. Now with things like Facebook Live and Periscope, you are right in the middle of it action and anyone can see what is going on. But, is that the whole story? Framing Theory can be applied to see how people are portraying what is going on.

During the Gezi Protests in Turkey, the question of social identification and trust was brought up. Many of the protesters did not have a political affiliation. The article by Haciyakupoglu and Zhang found that in a country with mass media being silenced by the government, social media was the main source of information. This does not come without risks. Risks of made up news stories, risk of false threats to safety were just a couple of things that could have circulated on the mass media. That only increased the trust people had in sender of the message.

I recommend reading the article on the Gezi Protest.

News in a New Era

This weeks recommendation:
Diddi, A., & LaRose, R. (2006). Getting hooked on news: Uses and gratifications and the formation of news habits among college students in an internet environment. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 193-210. doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem5002_2

News today can be consumed in several different ways. News Media is having to find a way to connect everyone to the news in an ever changing climate. This goes back to looking at the uses and gratification theory when it come to consuming news. According to Melvin DeFleur's definition of uses and gratification people seek out information to gain a knowledge or need to know that information. He describes that as being the reason people search for information. People today are satisfying that need for information in different ways. In Xi (2016) article looking at receiving information through the use of mobile phones in China, 27% of those surveyed got their news information from their phones. That number may not seem that big, but that is become a larger number in our society.

Videos are also a major way people are viewing the news online. A study done by Hanson and Haridakis in 2008 found that 69% of students surveyed watched a news video on YouTube. Traditional news outlets are becoming a secondary source, especially for college age students in my opinion for news. In the article looking at length of videos, it found that people are more interested in watching longer videos online. The question is becoming, how do we translate our news stations and outlets to hit this bigger audience online with the content we want them to see. Also we need to ask ourselves, how are we going to generate revenue. TV as a medium is becoming a dinosaur in may peoples eyes. How do we keep with the same journalistic values but on a different platform? That is the question we must ask ourselves and inspiring journalists.

My comment of a blog can be found here: https://huigaoblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/10/news-in-new-era/comment-page-1/#comment-3
REFERENCES

DeFluer, M. (2010). Mass communication theroies: Explaining origins, processes, and effects. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Diddi, A., & LaRose, R. (2006). Getting hooked on news: Uses and gratifications and the formation of news habits among college students in an internet environment. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 193-210. doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem5002_2

Hanson, G., & Haridakis, P. (2008). YouTube users watching and sharing the news: A uses and gratifications approach. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 11(3), 6. doi:10.3998/3336451.0011.305

Li, X. (2016). Getting news from mobile phones. Innovativeness vs. personal initiative in second level adoption. Emerging Media (pp. 53-79). New York, NY: Routledge.