Social media is saturating our everyday lives.  We use it for entertainment, debates, sourcing information and many more.  Social media has changed the way social institutions are utilised through news coverage, journalism and politics.  It is changing the world particularly in terms of television.  We see television shows referring to particular ‘Tweets’ and Facebook posts as if they are important news, particularly in the culture surrounding celebrities – MTV and the likes.

Public service broadcasting (PSB) has always had the task to engage audiences, allow communication in public debates and to educate audiences.  But with the introduction of web 2.0 and the rise of social media, PSB has been overcome with the task of surviving in a social, communicative and user-friendly world.  The difficulty between presenting an educational, accurate document and encompassing ‘tweets’ and individuals’ own thoughts has posed an issue.  This possibly brings into account the idea of an audience as a very active component to any media.  The thought that the audience is becoming more powerful than the creator is evident in this reading.  Through social media, the audience gains power and a voice.  I think this public voice is what is giving the audience power – as well as the fact that this voice and opinion is widely accessible – so if it sounds legitimate you can have a brainless following of sheep.

There is a trust for the ordinary, average person and those in a position of power are seemingly untrustworthy “We no longer trust the professional” (Dijck and Poell, 2015).  We seem to live in a world of sceptics where we can only trust ourselves or people like ourselves, which I think creates a need for PSB’s to incorporate social media.  It adds a legitimacy to their reports.  Everyday encounters and your average-person’s experiences are more believable than that of a professional.  Your average social media post is describing opinion and experience whereas when a professional speaks, they can be feeding the audience any form of information – it doesn’t matter what they say or believe because they are being paid to potentially lie or conceal truths.  Why would an ordinary person on social media lie to the world wide web?  I think that people are more aligned with what the ordinary person has to say and it presents authenticity to a public service broadcasting therefore, there is a definite need for these organisations to incorporate the growing social media world… if they want to survive.

J. Van Dijck and T. Poell,‘Making Public Television Social? Public Service Broadcasting and the Challenges of Social Media’,Television & New Media, 2015, Vol.16(2), pp.148-164