Online Journalism Structures

As we’ve talked about in class, online journalism has grown exponentially over the last couple of decades. As we move towards more digital forms of media, journalistic content and news has become so accessible for anyone. At the touch of a button, a person (or user) could have access to thousands upon millions of news stories and journalism content. With that, news has become free to anyone that has access to the internet. No longer do you have to pay for a newspaper subscription, but instead simply open up and app or search it up online. Of course, with that kind of access, it allows for anybody to become a journalist. Anybody can report on an event and post it on social media or on a blog. Not everyone uses this in a responsible way, however, and the rise of fake news and unreliable news has coincided with the rise of online journalism. One of the biggest changes in online journalism has been the rise of journalism in social media. News stations and independent journalists are able to use social media across multiple platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, among others. Through these multiple platforms, modular content has become a popular way to utilize all these social media platforms in order to maximum their reach and their following. One of the biggest examples of online journalism can be seen on TikTok with the user Dylan Page. He is an independent journalist with 17.6 million followers who posts about local, national, and international news almost daily. This emphasizes the point that online journalism has allowed anyone to report on anything and still become a reliable source of information for people.