Has Social Media Overatken Tradional News Media as the Preferred Choice for Receipt of Daily News?

Has Social Media Overtaken the Traditional News Media?
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Table of Contents
 TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc468102836"
Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc468102836 \h
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1.1 Research Questions and Objectives  PAGEREF _Toc468102837 \h
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1.1.1 Definition  PAGEREF _Toc468102838 \h
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1.2 Significance of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc468102839 \h
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1.3 Limitations of the study  PAGEREF _Toc468102840 \h
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2. Literature review  PAGEREF _Toc468102841 \h
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2.1 Theoretical Framework: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Social Media versus Traditional Media and Its Effects  PAGEREF _Toc468102842 \h
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2.2 Analysis of how Donald Trump used the Social Media Coverage and its Effects on the Elections  PAGEREF _Toc468102843 \h
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2.3 Literature review on the Singaporean preferred news platforms  PAGEREF _Toc468102844 \h
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2.4 Comparison between the American and the Singaporean preferred sources of news  PAGEREF _Toc468102845 \h
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3. Research Methodology  PAGEREF _Toc468102846 \h
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3.1 Literature Research Technique  PAGEREF _Toc468102847 \h
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3.2 Research Study  PAGEREF _Toc468102848 \h
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3.3 Sampling Methods  PAGEREF _Toc468102849 \h
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3.4 Data Collection Instrument  PAGEREF _Toc468102850 \h
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3.4.1 Content Analysis  PAGEREF _Toc468102851 \h
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3.4.2 Questionnaire Content  PAGEREF _Toc468102852 \h
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3.4.3 Survey Design  PAGEREF _Toc468102853 \h
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3.4.4 Data Requirement  PAGEREF _Toc468102854 \h
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4. Result and Analysis  PAGEREF _Toc468102855 \h
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4.0 Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc468102856 \h
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4.1 Results  PAGEREF _Toc468102857 \h
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4.2 Analysis  PAGEREF _Toc468102858 \h
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4.3 Limitations  PAGEREF _Toc468102859 \h
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5. Conclusion  PAGEREF _Toc468102860 \h
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5.0 Main Findings  PAGEREF _Toc468102861 \h
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5.1 Recommendations  PAGEREF _Toc468102862 \h
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References  PAGEREF _Toc468102863 \h
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Has Social Media Overtaken the Traditional News Media?
Introduction
The popularity of the social media as the source of news has increased to a large extent over the years. With the ever-increasing use of the social platforms, the spread of news is faster than during the early days when people relied on the traditional sources of news. Televisions have also established social networks where the breaking news are spread before they reach the public via the official broadcasting. A good example is the iReport by CNN. Research shows that traffic across the news websites has reduced while that of the social networks has increased immensely. People turn to search for the breaking news on the social media which in turn directs them to the traditional sources of news for more details. The public is given the opportunity to post the news on the social platforms as they unfold. For instance, the first person to raise the alarm about the force raid of Osama bin Laden was the neighbor who tweeted about the commotion that was going on next door. This shows how significant the social media has become as a reliable source of news. The increased popularity has raised concerns among researchers who wish to know whether the social media has become a preferred source of news as opposed to the traditional news organization (Kothari, 2004). Social media has taken a critical position as the medium for sharing news compared to the traditional models.
1.1 Research Questions and Objectives
The research aims to find out whether the society today prefer to obtain news from the social media rather than the traditional sources.
Other objectives include;
To evaluate the effect of the social media on the 2016 US presidential elections by focusing on the victory of Donald Trump and how the public received the information about his victory.
To determine if the Singaporeans preferred social platforms for receipt of the daily news.
To analyze the future of the news media of Singapore and its effects on the electoral process of the nation.
To achieve the objectives, the research applies a number of research questions as listed below;
Where do the people run to obtain the breaking news?
What is the trend observed in the traffic of the traditional sources of information since the social media was introduced?
What is the traffic trend observed on the social media?
What is the relationship between the trend on the traditional sources of news and the social media?
What are the effects of the rise in the social media use on how people receive news?
Has the increased use of the social media made it easy for the public to obtain the breaking news and also contribute to the distribution of the information?
What are the social effects of the increased use of the social media to dispatch and obtain news?
Is there a certain age group that tends to prefer the use of social media platforms to transmit information?
Did the social media have any impact on the US election process and how the public received the news about the victory of Donald Trump?
What are the preferred news platforms for the people of Singapore?
What is the perception about the future news media of Singapore and what are its effects on the electoral process of the country?
1.1.1 Definition
The study aimed to critically analyze whether the social media has overtaken the traditional news platforms and whether it is the preferred source of information for many users. The main focus of the study was to identify the role played by the social media in the recent US presidential election and its effects on how the public received the news about Donald Trump's victory. The research also analyzed the situation of Singapore and how the social media affected the transmission of information in the country. Towards the end, a comparison between the use of social media in the US and Singapore was deduced.
1.2 Significance of the Study
The study is essential since it helped the researchers to obtain insights on the extent to which the social media has shaped the society. The platforms have been crucial in the interaction process of people in the society. The platforms form the basis of the interaction process among people and acts as instruments for communication. Unlike the traditional sources of news like the television, which presents a one-way communication, the social media allows people to contribute and state their comments and views about the topic under discussion. The feedback and the interaction aspect of the social media is one of the popular reasons behind the popularity of the sites as a source of news.
The study also successfully states the role of the social media during the US election process. The networks played a key role during both the campaign period and the broadcasting of the information about the elected presidential candidate. The participants expressed different feelings about the victory by Donald Trump. This type of media also plays a critical role in Singapore as shown by the study.
1.3 Limitations of the study
The research was faced by several influences that were above the control of the researchers. The major limitation was in obtaining the respondents. Some of the members of the selected samples were not willing to participate in the study. The researchers were forced to come up with ways of replacing the number that did not turn up, an issue which also posed a problem. The replacement process required the researcher to conduct further sampling leading to consumption of more time and resources. The situation led to time constraint during the research process since the reschedule of the sampling process took much of the time that would have been used during the research. The researchers were forced to conduct the research faster to catch up with the deadline.
2. Literature review
2.1 Theoretical Framework: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Social Media versus Traditional Media and Its Effects
The increasing use of social media globally continuously substitutes traditional media in diverse applications that include communication, marketing, and advertisements. Traditional media involve the use of various indigenous communication channels that include print media, television broadcasts, radios, billboards and emails among others (Rodriguez, 2010). Although they were active in the past, the rise of social media use has proved beyond doubt that they were ineffective. Social media has enhanced the effectiveness of marketing and advertisements considering that they reach the target and typical buyer rather than an entire population as done by traditional marketing.
The use of social media is tremendous with over 65 percent of American adults using social networks and of the total, at least 7 percent began using social networks as early as 2005 (Greenwood, Perrin, & Duggan, 2016). Facebook is still the leading social network in use in the US comprising about 79 percent of the total population, 28 percent on Instagram, 26 percent on Pinterest, 25 on LinkedIn and 21 percent on Twitter (Rodriguez, 2010). Women use the social networks more than men with a total of 83 percent of females using social media, against 75 percent of men (Barker, 2012). Three-quarters of Facebook users visits the site on a daily basis with 55 percent visiting several times in a day compared to 22 percent who visit at least once in a day. On Instagram, 51 percent of the users visit the site daily while 23 percent say they use Twitter on a daily basis (Rodriguez, 2010).
Social media is a cheap marketing tool as compared to traditional methods. It takes a fraction of the total cost to reach the same target group as traditional media and more so provides the capability of selective range (Norval, 2012). The cost of an advertisement in social media costs less than $3 regarding cost per thousand impressions, while it takes $10 for radio and $28 for television. Social media also provides a platform for instant feedback, hence enhancing the effectiveness of marketing and advertising (Naughton, 2016).
2.2 Analysis of how Donald Trump used the Social Media Coverage and its Effects on the Elections
The huge number of social media users in the United States standing at over a third of the total population greatly influences national events and more so presidential elections. Previous presidential candidates like positively used the media to undertake campaigns with the others manipulating reporters to favor them in their broadcast, like Lyndon Johnsons (Jones, 2016). On the contrary, Donald Trump used the media in an exact opposite of what any professional would advise (Naughton, 2016). He ran a presidential campaign against the press thus earning media attention and in turn more coverage. By negatively covering Trump, the traditional media attracted the interests of social media users who in turn followed Trumps moves during the campaign continuously.
In traditional media, Clinton had an endorsement of 229 dailies compared to Trump's nine dailies, a huge margin. However, on the social media Trump was the focus, and at some point, his Facebook page had 12million likes, twitter account, 12.9 million followers while Clinton had7.8 million and 10.1 million, respectively ("Clinton and Trump Have Very Different Strategies for the Final Stretch", 2016). Through social media, Donald Trump managed to counter the enormous standings on the news media. The capability of social media to allow for instant feedback on issues allowed Trump to get an understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, an aspect that paid off during the last periods of the campaigns where he changed his campaign tactics and later won the election (Naughton, 2016). Also, the social media provided Trump an opportunity to directly interact with the electorates, and in so doing, they got a better understanding of his articulations, thus shifting their allegiance at the last moments of the campaign thus voting for him.
2.3 Literature review on the Singaporean preferred news platforms
The high rates of literacy and affluence levels make Singaporeans prefer written media as the essential source of information as characterized by the high newspaper readership rates. By the year 1998, the newspaper circulation in the country stood at 1,056,000, a far much bigger number in comparison to other states in the region. The newspapers are printed in all the four official languages in the country, with English taking up the bigger share at 49.1 percent, Chinese at 43.9 percent, Malay comprising of 6.2 percent and lastly Tamil at 0.8percent (SPH Magazines, 2012). The diversity in language publications attracts all the ethnic groups towards purchasing the newspapers thus making the print media the most preferred news channel. Morning newspapers constitute a higher percentage of readerships as they are considered quality compared to the ...