All the news that is fit to Tweet

Given the growing trend of newspapers to either shutter their operations, move to some sort of hybrid print/online model, or move to online altogether, I’m left wondering what’s the real value of newspapers anymore.

Sure, newspapers are still good to line the bird cage with and wrap fish. I’ve also heard newsprint does a bang up job when it comes to cleaning windows. But, as far as a communication tool do newspapers have what it takes to continue to hold their place in the cultural lexicon? 

A recent post by Norman over at PR Back Talk got me thinking about the impact of new media on mainstream media and the role newspapers, in particular, play in communication.

Norman argues that online-only media outlets can provide the same service of newspapers, but that newspapers are very good at setting the agenda. In other words reading a headline, or a story in a newspaper, gives us something to talk about with people at the office that day.

All joking about what newspapers are good for aside, the truth is the agenda-setting theory ascribes a lot of power to media like newspapers to influence what we think about on a daily basis. But, what I’ve seen with the growth in usage of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter is that the agenda-setting bubbles up from the grassroots to the grasstops. Often, stories will break on Twitter and it will be hours before  the same story “breaks” in the mainstream media.

The agenda isn’t set by gatekeepers, but by the early adopters of the technology. The news is then picked up by the early majority (newspapers and other media outlets) where the majority of us will learn about it and potentially pass it on. This is a very rough example of the diffusion theory of communication. I think it is a more accurate way to look at the media landscape today.

I agree with Norman that as newspapers die off , the ability we have to share a common experience through the newsprint dies with them. As a part-time freelance journalist covering a very specific local beat, I know that the day is coming when the small-town weekly I mostly write for goes totally online or becomes some hybrid form of itself.

However, I think doing a Twitter Search for everyone in your area, following them, and engaging with them will move us into a whole new world where we are interconnected and can drive the agenda in a way that the newspapers never could. Additionally, the same tactic can be used to gather and then diffuse news from various places all over the world.

In this way the united experience isn’t lost. It’s expanded.