Abstract
Liberal democratic societies have taken to a huge shift with regards to media and have raised questions on the undermining of fourth estate by fifth estate. Fourth estate appears to be more and more losing out its strength to the fifth estate, starting right from choosing and formulating the breaking news. In light of the ferocious and mounting competition of live fever, the breaking news has a reverse flow today from the digital media to television and other mainstream media. There also is a shift, in the nature of breaking news from sudden happening, which had importance; to urgent news, which is more catchy, provocative, and engrossing. Usage of social media, the fifth estate in breaking news has become the practice to uncover news quickly. Hence, the patterns of breaking news production and consumption are an important part of the reversal in the making of news. Immediacy is the key reason behind the phenomenon. The use of search engines on social media to find keywords today leads to breaking news. The chapter covers the way news is gathered, distributed, and consumed. It further explores the reasons, challenges, and implications of the emergent phenomena. Various examples to show how social media posts have become, not only the breaking news but full stories in television debates and further in newspapers are cited and discussed. New patterns are definitely sha** the rapidly evolving news ecology. There is clearly a need to study the emerging patterns and designs of new developments in making of news.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
@Twitter create, How Newsrooms are using Twitter conversation settings. Retrieved on 21st August 2022 from https://create.twitter.com/en/articles/case-study/2021/how-newsrooms-are-using-twitter-conversation-settings
Erin, B. (2018). Meet the man who invented the #hashtag. Retrieved on 27th October, 2022 from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/chris-messina-hashtag-inventor.html
Blank, G. (2022). Social media and the changing ecology of news: The Fourth and Fifth Estates in Britain. Academia.edu. Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/3536148/Social_media_and_the_changing_ecology_of_news_The_Fourth_and_Fifth_Estates_in_Britain
Carlyle, T. (1904). On heroes: Hero worship and the heroic in history. In H. R. Allenson (Ed.), London, 1905 (pp. 349–350). London: H. R. Allenson. (Original work published 1840).
Dutton, W. H. (2008). The Wisdom of collaborative network organizations: Capturing the value of networked individuals. Prometheus, 26(3), 211–230.
Dutton, W. H. (2009). In E. J. Helsper & M. M. Gerber (Eds.), The Internet in Britain. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
Earl, J., & Kimport, K. (2011). Digitally enabled social change: Activism in the internet age. MIT Press.
Ellen de Genres. (2022). Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://twitter.com/theellenshow/status/440322224407314432
Keen, A. (2007). The cult of the amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture. Doubleday.
Large portion of Twitter users regularly get news there. Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project. (2021). Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/09/20/news-consumption-across-social-media-in-2021/pj_2021-09-20_news-social-media_0-03/
Lecheler, S., & Kruikemeier, S. (2016). Re-evaluating journalistic routines in a digital age: A review of research on the use of online sources. New Media & Society, 18(1), 167.
Newman, N., Dutton, W., & Blank, G. (2012). Social media in the changing ecology of news: The fourth and fifth estates in Britain. International Journal of Internet Science, 7(1), 6–22. Ijis.net. Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://www.ijis.net/ijis7_1/ijis7_1_newman_et_al.pdf
Robert, H. (2011). The Pew Research Center’s 2011 Annual Report on American Journalism. Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-social-media-helps-journalists-break-news/. https://www.academia.edu/3536148/Social_media_and_the_changing_ecology_of_news_The_Fourth_and_Fifth_Estates_in_Britain
The News Hour. (2022). ‘Times Now’ News Channel, 30th August, 2022, 09:00 PM.
Ofcom (2010, June 30). Halt in decline of flagship TV news programs [Web log post]. Message posted on http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2010/06/30/halt-in-decline-of-flagship-tv-news-programmes/.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/essay_farewellinfo.pdf
OpIndia, (2022). Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://www.opindia.com/2022/05/this-day-in-2011-when-pakistani-twitter-user-live-tweeted-osama-bin-laden-raid-unwittingly/
Rusbridger, A. (2010, April 23). Interview with Charlie Rose in Current Affairs. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10978
Saffo, P. (2005, December). Farewell information, it’s a media age [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://saffo.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/essay_farewellinfo.pdf
Sambrook, R. (2005) Citizen journalism and the BBC. Niemen Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Retrieved from http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100542
Balaji, S. (2022). Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1558415002062581761
Twitter user broke Whitney Houston’s death news before mainstream media. The Indian Express. (2022). Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/entertainment-others/twitter-user-broke-whitney-houstons-death-news-before-mainstream-media/.
Twitter. (2022). Retrieved on 27th October 2022 from https://twitter.com/search?q=jay+shah&ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Esearch
Zeqiri, B., Goodhart, D., Donnelly, B., Hazell, B., Mendick, B., & Davies, B. (2022). New York plane crash: Twitter breaks the news, again. The Telegraph. Retrieved 20 August 2022, from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/4269765/New-York-plane-crash-Twitter-breaks-the-news-again.html
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lata Singh, C. (2024). Reverse Flow of Sourcing Breaking News. In: Dahiya, S., Trehan, K. (eds) Handbook of Digital Journalism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6675-2_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6675-2_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-99-6674-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-99-6675-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)