How mainstream media abuse social media

Social media has undoubtedly been a boon for journalism as a profession and is an invaluable tool for enhancing accountability, transparency and communications.

For journalists, such as myself, social media became the ultimate aid not only in staying in tune with any potentially breaking news much more quickly than before, but also in disseminating news items and thoughts to audiences that perhaps would have never had easy access to them.

Social networking applications such as Facebook and Twitter have become so powerful in informing public opinion, that a post on either of these could now potentially dominate the news cycle for a day.

All around the world, a significant group of individuals post liberally on social media to offer opinions and reactions. An argument could be made that collectively posts on social media to some extent offer a reliable indication of public opinion.

However, the posts are so numerous and diverse that using them to actually portray the general public reaction to an issue (as many news outlets attempt to do) would require a rigorous undertaking in public polling. Without such a process, using social media posts to illuminate a reaction, really only serves the purpose of highlighting those isolated opinions put on display.

As such, news outlets' now habitual framing of social media posts to offer a broader public perspective tends to instead highlight and reinforce the political or ideological perspective of those outlets.

For journalists, such as myself, social media became the ultimate aid not only in staying in tune with any potentially breaking news much more quickly than before, but also in disseminating news items and thoughts to audiences that perhaps would have never had easy access to them

Last week, the Manchester Police Department showed a lack of judgement in staging a taped anti-terror exercise in which the fake terrorist yelled, "Allahu Akbar" just before blowing himself up. They made the video public to inform the public of their readiness. But the terrorists' line caused outrage within the UK's Muslim community as well as many others in the country who felt as though the police department were positively and exclusively equating between Muslims and terrorists. Manchester police quickly apologised. It was an open-and-shut case (no pun intended) where a mistake was made and swiftly realised.

However, one UK newspaper thought it was doing its job of objectivity by claiming that "critics ask: Why should force apologise?"

Who are these critics that deserve a voice in this otherwise uncontroversial story? They are two random tweets, apparently.

One of the highlighted tweets said, "Who else would blow up a mall… the Methodists?" This tweet, whose owner was not identified, was afforded a large sub-heading in bold, dominating a quarter of a page. Meanwhile, an official statement by the Centre for Muslim Affairs, criticising the use of the phrase, was tagged on at the end of the article, for "objectivity's" sake.   

A study from a book on the portrayal of young British Muslims in UK media showed that many believe that same newspaper to hold anti-Muslim views, especially in its constant association of Muslims with terrorists. My own personal daily perusal of the paper confirms that (to me), which put into perspective its entirely unprofessional use of those two tweets.

On the other hand news outlets that saw the fault in the exercise portrayed tweets of individuals condemning it, and did not include those of the critics mentioned above.

Most large news outlets will now have a social media team who are in charge of both the paper's online presence, and in gauging the response of social media to events.

But unless a tweet receives an exceptionally high amount of retweets, or a Facebook post receives an exceptionally high number of likes, or if a hashtag is trending, these teams would never be able to claim that purely opinionated posts have any kind representative quality.

But random, obscure posts make it on the news all the time now.

These kinds of posts, instead serve as very adaptable framing tools for news stories, perhaps in the same way that street interviews are used in television.

Unless a tweet receives an exceptionally high amount of retweets, or a Facebook post receives an exceptionally high number of likes, teams would never be able to claim that purely opinionated posts have any kind representative quality

However, there is a major difference in that a journalist skimming through social media may be able to more easily find or even fabricate the kinds of opinions that will help frame the story for the news outlet, with the very slim possibility that they may be caught in the act.

This trend is especially visible in Arab news outlets. It is very common to hear or read the phrase, "the reaction on social media was…" embedded in a news report, especially in some of the less professionally rigorous news outlets.

Somehow, each of these outlets manages to frequently find opinions on social media that are consistent with the stations general political alignment, whether these papers or television shows are nationalist, partisan, revolutionary, religious or otherwise.

In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated news outlets (operating mostly out of Turkey) can be seen constantly highlighting posts that are in line with their political position vis-à-vis the regime, while those that are in favour of the current president will do the same.

Most news outlets will use posts as just another way to state their own positions and bias, while attempting to mask it as engaging in youthful populism.

When closely scrutinised, one may find that the use of social media does as much to debunk the myth of media objectivity, as it does to promote the spread of information.

Media outlets should embrace this reality by no longer shirking away from their sometimes painfully obvious biases, while at the same time attempting to provide the broadest range of information; the two are not mutually exclusive.

Readers and viewers can then approach the news they consume as the work of a curator of information, rather than that of the gatekeeper of facts and the process of news production/consumption becomes all the more honest.

If this is achieved in the Arab World, where information passes through its fair share political and social filters as well, at least readers will then acknowledge the existence of "the Other" as a potential source for facts and opinions.


Mohamed ElMeshad is a journalist and a PhD candidate at SOAS, focusing on the political economy of the media. He has worked extensively in Egypt, Bahrain, West Africa, the UK and US. Recently, he contributed to the Committee to Protect Journalists' book, Attacks on the Press (2015).

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.