Discrimination and application of traditional media

At present, online media is developing at a high speed. Its fast, massive and decentralized characteristics are increasingly impacting the traditional media structure and reorganizing the rules of public opinion. How to improve media literacy and effectively identify online information has become an urgent problem for traditional media.

1. Common misunderstandings of traditional media

Single-minded and quick

Internet media's state of "the earlier the report, the better" has put great pressure on traditional media. Therefore, many media are eager to be quick. In front of a piece of information, it seems that the winner can get high attention and seize more market share of the audience, while the followers can only follow suit, thus ignoring the screening of information.

It's hard to verify

The disorder of information on the internet is also manifested in the difficulty in confirming its information. Sometimes, false information providers will disguise themselves in various ways, making it difficult for information recipients to distinguish.

Lack of understanding of the operation mode of network pusher

Blogs and forums are important sources of information for traditional media. Take blog as an example, it is not only the "cradle of inside information", but also the "competitor of emergency report" and "promoter of public opinion" day by day.

With the promotion of public opinion status of blogs and forums, illegitimate commercial interests have also penetrated into the corners of these public opinion platforms. Blog posts and hot posts on the Internet are even clearly marked. Although this has become an open secret in the industry, some journalists and media either know nothing about it or turn a deaf ear to it and follow suit. For traditional media practitioners, we should not only care about "what is a hot post", but should break the casserole and ask "why is it a hot post".

Irrational news values

The scramble for follow-up of online hype reflects the impetuousness of the media. Many media just follow the process of events, without delving into the reasons behind them, let alone whether they should enter the media agenda, thus affecting the audience's agenda. In many cases, the criterion may be just online speculation or news. This irrational news value will inevitably damage the foundation of traditional media-authority and credibility.

2. How to improve media literacy

To cope with the increasingly chaotic network information, the core lies in improving media literacy.

Traditional media can balance and improve their literacy from several aspects:

(1) Balance between accuracy and timeliness

Resolutely implement the news verification procedures that traditional media should have. Compared with online media, one of the advantages of traditional media is authority; If the public's media literacy is improved and they no longer believe in online information, they will have more expectations for traditional media, so ensuring accuracy is the performance of traditional media's responsibility to themselves and the audience.

(2) Tracking network hotspots and identifying human operations.

There are some skills to distinguish between true and false online hot posts. For example, the shady incident of 360 resigned employees reported by CCTV summarizes the characteristics of artificially manipulated online hot posts: the coverage is wide, and the same hot post appears in several or even dozens of forums; Time is short, often forming scale overnight; There are many replies, there will be similar IP addresses, and the same reply will appear in multiple forums. Therefore, media practitioners should pay attention to this practice and gradually establish their own "network blacklist". When you meet the news released by the same company and the same ip, you must ask more questions and verify it several times to avoid being fooled.

(3) the balance between using network information and sticking to news value

On the one hand, the Internet is still an important source of information for traditional media, despite the confusion of information. On the other hand, traditional media should stick to news values, especially when using the Internet, otherwise they will get lost in the vast information. Compared with the unlimited information capacity of the Internet, the information content of traditional media is limited, which determines the inevitability of traditional media news selection. Of course, this does not represent the disadvantage of traditional media, because, like news verification, news selection can also be a trump card for traditional media to win by quality.

In the positioning of news value, it should not only be different from media, but also keep pace with the development of Internet. However, some principles should be adhered to. For example, the media should not rush to personal hype. However, when personal hype enters public issues and causes public controversy, personal hype becomes a public opinion event, and the media cannot stand idly by. More importantly, the media should always adhere to objective reporting and balance the right to speak of both sides of the contradiction, rather than partial listening and partial believing.

In the final analysis, it is still necessary to grasp the balance between news laws and media commercialization. Traditional media can only gain long-term vitality if they give full play to their advantages, criticize the disadvantages of the times, take responsibility and lead the progress.