Technology: Saving or Destroying Journalism?

Emily Finton
ef385214@ohio.edu

"Journalism is dead." "There are no jobs in journalism." "Journalism is a dying field."

These are just a few of the common phrases people love to say when on topic. Journalism is absolutely NOT dying, it's instead becoming more innovative.

Innovation means creating new methods. This doesn't say whether it's good or bad, it just means that there are changes occurring. New innovative techniques in the journalism field are intriguing, and the technology is state-of-the-art.

A method that has somewhat always been used as a marketing technique is used for drawing attention to headlines through social media. I have fallen for it, maybe we all have once or twice. A catchy headline that draws an emotional response from its audience. It has become so easy for social media users to read a headline, think they know what the content is from only that, and keep scrolling through their timeline.

Numerous studies have been done to prove how headlines influence the attention of their readers, just as the Columbian Journalism Review stated in their article "Stop trolling your readers." Forbes showed another example of this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/08/08/59-percent-of-you-will-share-this-article-without-even-reading-it/#43345aa82a64

Social media sites such as Facebook have been doing their best to make sure their platform stays as honest as possible, but they cannot control each user's content. This is something that was a driving force through the election of President Trump. Whether it was fake news or or spam, readers were and still are being fooled. We are drawn in by our interests and people are making money off our clicks to headlines that may be completely inaccurate information. This is what tarnishes the name of journalism and makes journalists have to work harder.