Research Paper Topic

For my research paper, I really want to look at social media.  I’m interested so much in the relationship between social media and journalism because I find myself drawn to the Internet’s wealth of available information and the capacity for people to create the idea of news and not just react to it. Social media, I think, is becoming a kind of journalism. Twitter can force headlines. The community can control the information the community is exposed to. It’s that relationship to social media that I want to focus on, I think, where people are attracted to different manners of expressing themselves to a variety of audiences. Why are people enamored of their ability to interact with news? I may not know what’s happening from the news sphere, per se, but I can check Twitter and get my bearings.  I’m fascinated by seemingly everyone’s desire to be witty and charming and wildly informative on the Internet. What is it that is so appealing about journalism through social media? I think it’s the acceptability of other people. I think social media has created a place where I don’t have to accept some higher news power’s deduction of events. I think the citizens’ accounts of events are becoming as important as mainstream news. I think newspapers are expensive and blogging is free and this disparity allows bloggers everywhere to influence a greater audience because of their universality.  After some casual googling, I’ve decided to focus on what people are drawn to in social media, and how it affects journalism as a medium and the idea of objectivity in the sea of all these perspectives.