Seminar discusses impact of social media in journalism and society

Image by FIU, courtesy of Creative Commons

Written by Camila Fernandez/BBC Managing Editor

camila.fernandez@fiusm.com

As social media spreads news at a faster rate, consumers are more likely to be misinformed by unreliable sources.

To address this issue, the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication will focus this month’s seminar event on the use of social media and its affect on society Wednesday, Jan. 28.

According to Lillian Kopenhaver, dean emeritus at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, more young people are getting messages through social media than any other kind of medium.

Whether it be in the field of journalism, advertising or public relations — social media is used everywhere. However, it’s important to learn the responsibilities of social media usage and to discern which news is accurate.

“It’s so important for people who are in communication to realize that social media is important, but also the fact that it has to be accurate and you can’t just rush to judgement,” Kopenhaver said.

To bring light on the issue, the center has invited renowned News Local 10 Reporter Glenna Milberg and Don Silver, chief operating officer at the marketing and public relations firm BoardroomPR.

“[Social Media] is much faster. It’s a speedy kind of no-filter way of getting things out and that could have a great downside,” Milberg said in an interview with Student Media.

As co-host of “This Week in South Florida,” Milberg has covered stories on issues and events on Cuba’s revolution and evolution, earthquakes in California and Colombia and the plight of orphans in Ukraine.

She has also been awarded the Big Impact Award from Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Miami and graduated with a broadcast journalism degree at FIU.

Milberg said that as a country with free speech, anyone can record things on Facebook, report on Twitter and upload videos on YouTube without having to be professional journalists.

“You always have to be a smart, discerning news consumer, but with social media, that just ramps that up logarithmically — I mean to the nth degree,” Milberg said. “So you really never know what is credible.”

On the other hand, she said that social media has provided her with many platforms to work with at a faster rate and to a wider audience in real-time.

News Local 10 reporter Glenna Milberg will speak at a seminar hosted by the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication Jan. 28.

“All of the sudden I have all kinds of sources that I never had before,” Milberg said. “If something happens in the field, I immediately know who are the eyewitnesses because they’re Tweeting about it or on Facebook with it.”

To bring in another perspective, Silver, who has worked for 30-plus years in public relations and marketing management, will also speak at the event. He is known for assisting the state’s top entrepreneurs and corporations in public relations, marketing and community outreach.

Students like Ingrid Faust, a junior advertising major, agree that social media is like a double-edged sword, that it has it’s upsides and downsides.

“Before, without social media, it would take us days to find out something that happened half-way around the world… now it’s seconds,” Faust said.

She said that for advertising, social media allows advertisers to find out what the public wants to know what to sell. However, she said socially, it is also regressing our society.

“Socially, I think it’s something that’s setting us back. Everyone is on their phone. No one communicates face to face,” Faust said.

The seminar, “Social Media: Adding Impact to the Message,” will be held at the Biscayne Bay Campus in the Academic Two Building room 252 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The event is free and opened to the public.