CHUKA UNIVERSITY

FALCULTY: HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT: HUMANITIES
DIPLOMA IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION
UNIT: MASS COMMUNICATION
TRADITIONAL MEDIA VERSUS SOCIALMEDIA

Introduction

As a result of technological advancement in communication have considerably and at

a staggering rate. Accordingly, they become irreplaceable tools of modern life as they

transformed the way we interact with each other and with the world utilized in the

words. The current digital interactions mean utilized in the virtual world. They have

replaced the traditional forms of communication. This modern communication

process represented by virtual modes of communication has become easier, quicker

and more efficiency (Jefferson 2008, Genrke and William, 2014 Simonson, 2013.)

It is worth mentioning that this current research study aimed to frame the ongoing and

growing debate in the academic field about the overlapping relationship between

traditional media and social media outlets. The study sought to represent an in-depth

and inclusive discussion about the traditional media and social media, focusing on the

challenges and opportunities of each type.

Opportunities of social media compared to Traditional media

1. The value: social media is often far less expensive than traditional media

2. Communication and interactions: social media tends to be much more

interactive than traditional media as social media allow for direct

communication and interaction between users.

3. Data-driven: social media is highly data driven as it allows the user to know
 the exact number of other users who accessed to his/her content compared to

traditional media.

4. Level playing field: social media provides a level playing field i.e. It does not

take exorbitant amount of money to establish and grow a business using social

media.

5. Accuracy: The rating results extracted from social media are more accurate

than traditional media outlets rating such as tv rating, they use social media to

rate their opinions.

6. Real-time results: Unlike traditional media the results you receive from new

media are often in real -time which allows the users to make instant changes.

7. . virility: social media has potential to go viral and hence the user’s content

could be share with millions of people.

8. Global reach: social media has a global reach whereas traditional media tends

to be highly regional.

9. Amount of usage in todays world: People simply interact more with social

than traditional media i.e. They tend spend an ever-increasing amount of time

engaging with their cell phone, and less time watching TV.

Challenges of social media

1. Causes several health problems such as obesity, stress and high Blood

pressure. Rises in laziness among people due to no physical activity or

exercises (Allen 2019)

2. Social media can decrease communication and relationship between

people because there are no face-to-face conversations.

 3. The excessive use of social media decreases the individuals personal

time as he/she is always in contact with someone in the digital space. It

can be distracting from person’s daily schedule.

4. Social media also causes a loss of privacy, because anyone ca be found

anywhere and at any time of the day.

5. Social media leads to impersonation of accounts resembling the real

accounts and being used by others and can lead to false and fake

information (gharawi [2014].)

6. Social media can lead to addiction. Excessively or frequently use of

social media has negative impact on how individual’s brain interprets

pleasure and reward (e.g., gambling) when one plays a game and wins,

his/her brain produces dopamine(murphy,2022.)

Opportunities traditional media compared to social media

1. Traditional media has credibility has credibility and reliability of news.

This is because traditional media is more regulated than new media

making it less likely to contain false or misleading information.

2. Tangibility. Traditional media is tangible, which means that people can

touch it and even smell it.

3. Appeal to older demographics: some older people may be more likely

to consume traditional media than social media.

4. Editorial control: Traditional media outlets exercise editorial control

over the content they publish or broadcast. this controls allows them to

maintain quality standard and ensure that the information presented is

 balanced and well researched compared to social media.

5. Simplicity and accessibility: Traditional media such as newspaper and

radio are simple to use and require minimum technical knowledge

compared to use of social media where one requires skills to operate.

Challenges of traditional media

 Audience engagement: Content like drama, music, reality shows and

news are increasingly being consumed online.

 Traditional media has high costs of production and airtime.

 Using traditional media, it is hard to target your specific audience.

 Traditional media has a short life span e.g., newspaper is valueless

after 24hours.

Conclusion

History has shown that development is an unstoppable process and

technological advancements have changed not only the media infrastructure

but also the way people communicate with one another and the sources of

information they seek. Field researchers have attempted to comprehend each

step of the technological transformation that have taken place in the media

domain, particularly the effects of the technological advancement of the

internet and it most recent generation known as social media, which is the

digitalized form of new media that relies on computerization, on the traditional

media outlets’ production mechanisms and distribution procedures.

The findings of the current study confirm some results from research

advantages is that social media has overtaken traditional media.

 Reference

 Allen. (2019) “Technological influence of society”

 Gehrke, P. and William, K. (2014) ‘A century of communication studies

 Garawa (2014)

 Murphy,2022 “Negative impact of social media on brains”