DigitalNewsAlerts provide current information regarding trends in social media. Articles highlight new platforms, apps, tools and companies in this rapidly-evolving sector.
This report is part of an ongoing series on digital journalism funded by The Pew Research Center and research is ongoing.
Social media
Digital News has quickly become a key part of media and society, changing how people access news and information. Traditional newspaper and magazine circulations have decreased significantly while television news broadcasters no longer rely on large audiences; they instead distribute content online to reach a wider range of people.
Social media has quickly become a primary source of news for many individuals. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, more than half of social media users prefer algorithm-sourced news as it can be tailored specifically to their interests, online behaviour and political affiliation.
News organizations are developing experienced teams capable of adapting news content across platforms, but are encountering difficulties due to traffic and metrics issues, as well as WhatsApp and Telegram being prevalent closed networks.
Threaded discussions
Threaded discussions are an online discussion forum that organizes replies to a topic into an ongoing dialogue thread. This feature can be particularly beneficial when engaging in group conversations as it allows all participants to easily follow the line of discussion without losing track. Furthermore, threaded discussions provide time-sensitive solutions.
Outside of academic courses, many businesses also utilize threaded discussions as a tool to streamline conversations and enhance productivity. For instance, teams might create an announcements channel specifically to highlight company updates; threaded discussions allow these messages to stand out amongst the rest of the discussions in that channel.
Threaded discussions offer another advantage of digital classrooms by helping to strengthen student peer relationships online by providing them with access to their classmates’ comments and prompting students to write responses for themselves. Unfortunately, their time requirements can limit their effectiveness as learning tools in classroom environments.
Video
Video has revolutionised modern newsrooms by providing an engaging way for audiences to consume news reports. Capturing breaking events while offering more immersive experiences for viewers are just two advantages of using this powerful medium for reporting news stories.
On a typical day, 11% of unique browsers on the BBC website and app watch video clips. Following Paris attacks however, this figure jumped significantly to 19% for websites and 22% for news apps.
Online news videos have become shorter and taller, tailored for social feeds. Many are created directly from eyewitnesses’ phones or YouTubers and often include emotional appeal; sometimes without sound, with text overlays that enable people to follow stories even with the volume off.
Audio
As evidenced by the podcast boom, digital is giving audio a much-needed jolt in newsrooms around the country. Thanks to advancements in AI-powered text-to-speech technology that creates realistic voiceovers within minutes.
Noa, an Irish startup based out of Dublin, provides users with a selection of human narrated articles sourced from publishers, customized to each user individually. HBR is taking steps toward the future by teaming up with Noa – already 32 stories have been read aloud through them!
Clubhouse and Spotify Greenroom provide users with real-time listening of breaking news using text-to-speech technology that automatically generates subtitles which can then be embedded into video on Twitter and Facebook for easy global dissemination without needing to translate.
Text
Text alerts provide an effective and efficient means of rapidly spreading news when something breaking needs to be quickly spread around. Text notifications allow people to stay informed without disrupting their daily activities.
As an example, breaking news alerts might notify a person of road closures caused by weather or traffic issues; while sports fans might benefit from real-time score updates during an important game or match.
Text can also be used to present structured news; for instance, Circa’s app presented information in re-usable blocks known as “atoms.” This concept has since been taken up by Vox and other news sites, with some using it to create fully interactive stories.
Some digital news sites have started to experiment with card-like formats popularized by Snapchat and its imitators, often including large images or text that you swipe across to navigate.
