Social Media for News

Before I start this I blog need to confess that my Senior Capstone Project is on social media and how it influences people on the web. Needless to say, I have completed and continue to do a lot of study on this topic. Currently, I am interning with a social media group - managing some of their social media pages. My confession? I may be little biased on this topic, but here it goes... 

I like social media for a variety of reasons. It not only keeps me in touch with friends and family, but allows easy contact to specific individuals quickly and effectively when I need to "get a hold" of someone. Many times my first thought is to use Facebook to make contact with someone. This is perhaps the primary reason I like social media - my communication speed is information at my finger tips. 

November 11,  Dixie State announced that their football team will be moving into the RMAC (Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) in the fall of 2016.  At least three groups of media were at the event - along with a large representation of Dixie supporters. If you were unable to attend, but wanted quick, real time information, social media was your server for information. Within 30 seconds of the announcement the details were posted to Twitter and Facebook. If you followed the right media informant, you would have gained your desired information instantly while beating the next day's newspaper announcement as well as the DIXIE SUN (DSU's campus newspaper). Dixie's in house sports TV show, "The Storm Stackup" was among the first to break the news and their coverage was as informative as the newspapers' except there were less words to read - and I got the information quicker. This is why I like social media, its ability to get me information quickly and effectively in 140 characters or less. The rest of the news media at the event took hours or even a day to post the information.

The other perk (we discussed in class) is the ability to read followers' comments on posts. This quick ability to gain replies can feel as if we you are at a press conference listening to side remarks from the audience participating -  or in this case the Dixie alum. This gives people the feeling that they too have a say in the 24/7 over saturated news cycle. 

You can almost say social media is news your way.

So if you want DSU sports your way here is the link. 
https://www.facebook.com/TheStormStackup