Social media as a kind of new media

The article emphasizes the fact that the relevance of the research is determined primarily by its object, which is social networks as a new type of media. The convergence of online communities and online media is building a new media system.

Social networks have made interaction between news providers, authors, and consumers of information easier, and most importantly, have restored the trust of the latter. The main task of modern social networks is the one that has always lain with the media: to gather and retain its audience. As social networks take on a number of features, which are inherent in the media, the media reality itself has undergone dramatic changes.

The media consumers’ information agenda has started to form a feedstrip, and the picture of the world given to new consumer by the media has become fundamentally subjective. The reader now seeks only confirmation of his own thoughts in the texts. It is in the social networks that the concept of homophily is perfectly implemented, that is, communication with oneself.

New media has brought to life citizen journalism, which is the process which means that media texts are created by ordinary people. Its other function is to be a channel that feeds information into traditional media. Thus, the distinction between professional and non-professional content, to which the consumer of information began to pay the same attention, was erased.

However, being in the zone of information comfort, the readers cease to perceive information that goes against their thoughts and guidelines. Only media with a high level of personalization and adaptability can overcome this protection.

The one-way method of presenting information in digital times looks archaic. Journalism is now only a part of the work with information, not its core. Social networks, the Internet and mobile journalism have fostered a culture where people share knowledge through blogs and social networks, interact to solve problems and learn new things. Transmedia is a specific medium of media production, a synergy of genres and media formats, where feedback plays a special role. This phenomenon, which goes beyond professional journalism, is not a thoroughly studied and meaningful process, but an objective one. Researchers are now arguing about a "post-journalist era".