http://www.cnet.com/news/president-obama-joins-instagram/
By: Annahita Haghighi
We all know Instagram for its countless pictures; whether it’s #cats or #foodporn Instagram users are dedicated to the social media application. While Instagram used to just be for viewing your friends’ pictures with its rise in popularity everyone is now taking part in it. Now on Instagram you can become involved with your favorite celebrity to your local news station. Instagram is no longer a mindless social networking site, but it is now one of the top social media applications that you can use to get anything from pictures to news.
With Instagram’s newfound popularity it would be crazy to stay away from it. Recently news stations have turned to Instagram as a new reporting tool and way to involve the public. “Instagram is so immediate and intimate that it creates this close connection with the user,” said Cory Haik, executive producer for digital news at The Washington Post. Instagram has proven to be a helpful reporting tool when looking for photos of certain events, “If you’re trying to background a person or institution, it’s always good to look at Twitter, Instagram anything you can find on social media,” Elliott said. “If it’s something widely attended, by maybe a couple of hundred people, there’s a decent chance you’ll find photos.” So why not use the convenience of Instagram to make your job easier? Instead of having to search out photographers reporters can just search hash tags or look up a certain user. Instagram is making reporting so much easier for the reporter, but it is also making news more convenient for the reader.
People hardly have enough time to get breakfast before they head out the door; let alone find time to watch the news. Applications like Instagram are making major media sources such as: “CNN, CBS, NBC, USA Today”(mashable.com), and many other stations accessible at the touch of a button. Just looking at your news feed you can see top stories from a variety of stations. Instagram doesn’t stop at formal news stations, but it is also is, “an essential way to follow the lives of celebrities.”(theverge.com) Now that you can follow your favorite celebrity there is no need to spend $3.75 on an US Weekly magazine or waste an hour watching TMZ, you can instead get updates on your favorite celebrity directly from them. Instagram has been proving its self as a useful way for people to get information on the go and specific to what they want.
Overall, Instagram is changing the news and reporting forever. Thanks to this magical app everything has become more convenient whether it is for the reporters or the readers.
What do you think about news stations that rely on these kinds of tools? Are the apps themselves becoming a kind of pseudo reality that news stations are reporting on? What does it mean that mediated reality platforms like Instagram have become a prime source of information for a television website or news station that themselves provide a kind of psuedo reality picture of the world to viewers?
I believe that tools such as Instagram have become so advanced hat it’s okay for news stations to use them as a mediator between them and their viewers. I do think that these apps are becoming a pseudo reality for users, but i also think that the almost all media forms are becoming some sort of pseudo reality because everything is becoming so filtered and directed in one direction it is as if there is a view of the world that the media is giving us that isn’t anything like the actual world.