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Q. Do you believe that the democratisation of news via social media platforms poses a threat to legacy journalists? Not just in political news but in every sphere?
A: There is no doubt that democratisation of news or content for that matter have created a different competitive landscape for legacy media. But this is a mixed truth as such a statement needs more granular probing.
For legacy media, whether print media or TV news channels, the audience can be anyone from baby boomers to Generations X, Y or Z. Alpha may be too young to be interested in consuming news content which is either static or lacks interactivity. In the new mediascape, such infirmities engender audience migration to substitutes. Social media caters to that aplenty.
While audience has many options of news as per individual preferences, social media has its own challenges. For example, the trust quotient of digital news media isn’t very high as the veracity of source of news is often suspect. The real-time news break in social media can have different socio-economic and political Implications. In the age of generative AI, the challenges are only getting compounded. Leading print titles generally enjoy high trust quotient. The electronic news media in India have earned the sobriquet of towing the establishment line to the point of disbelief. The exit poll of the recent Lok Sabha elections is a classic testimony of that.
In the same way, the creator economy has plenty of content generators under various genres but each one of them has to fight fleeting loyalty of the audience by constantly creating novelty and prove authenticity of their content.