The elections in Iran and the unfolding events in Tehran have demonstrated the growing power today’s social media vehicles have over traditional news reporting. Despite frequent attempts by the Iranian government to block ‘controversial’ communications (including the BBC website), it has been the blogs, the Twitter posts, and the video and picture uploads that have been the voice of Iranian citizens and the source of content for traditional media broadcasters.
On the back of the events in Iran, the debate has opened again on traditional broadcasters using social media as credible sources of information, in particular in the context of international news reporting:
- Broadcaster's acceptance of social media for international news reporting where areas may be inaccessible to journalists (e.g. governmental restrictions; geographical location; environmental barriers).
- The growth in mobile internet connectivity in remote locations enabling the two-way dissemination of information and greater reach of news content.
- The verification of information from more prominent ‘semi-professional’ journalistic sources, which require monitoring.
The BBC embraces the value of blogs and Twitter, and over the past week, BBC World actively called upon Iranian audiences to post links to videos, pictures and comments to a BBC email address, as their journalists were having difficulty accessing the streets of Tehran. Citizen-generated content was broadcast by the BBC, however, a ‘semi-professional journalist’ disclaimer distanced themselves from the content source.
There is recognition from traditional media broadcasters that social media has value in future news reporting and the Iranian elections have concreted this, however, content verification and editorial control are still hurdles having to be jumped before true journalistic synergies will be realised.
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