When Online Social Media become Mainstream Media

Abstract

          Nowadays, online social media are not new for journalists and people living in the digital era anymore because of the transformation to the web 3.0 era, where people in the network society increasingly share information and collaborate in a content production.

          Consequently, an increasing use of the social media among journalism professionals and ordinary people could potentially make the emergent new media become mainstream media. Journalists turn to online social media and use them as a tip for their news investigation and to increase news richness.

          Even though only a few news organizations in Thailand use online social media as a tool for news gathering and disseminating, more and more ordinary people are using the online platforms such Facebook and Twitter to report their own versions of news and to express their opinions freely about public issues, regardless to time, space and formats.

          Working under the new media environment, online social media users both in organizational and individual levels have to ensure about accuracy and credibility of information they are disseminating: to use the new media to communicate effectively, contents have to be verified because accuracy and credibility are the core values of journalistic practices.