1.1 INTRODUCTION

There were times when people read newspapers in the morning, listened to the radio on the way to work, and watched some TV before bed. Newspapers, radio and TV are no longer sufficient in the ‘Attention Age’ when everyone needs to be on top of everything that goes on. Social media was responsible for the beginning of the Attention Age.

Social media is a term that is increasingly being thrown around in common language. Social media is the permeation of information that depends heavily on interaction between individuals. Social media is designed to be easily accessible, modifiable, and distributable. It is popular belief that social media refers to web 2.0 technology-backing platforms (Twitter, Facebook). Social media existed well before web was widely used. Public ‘offline’ forums are a form of social media. The forums would have never been successful unless there was active participation.

The makers of Social Media are you and I. The success of a newspaper is solely dependent on providing interesting news stories and gathering a massive public following. The interaction between the newspaper and the reader is almost one way (disregarding editorials). As long as the newspaper can make the reader happy, it survives. If this was the case with a social medium, it would not survive. Social media thrives on 'comments', 'replies', 'following', and 'sharing'. News writers constitute a news paper. Everyone makes up a social medium. Information is multi casted in a social media and received only by people who choose to receive them.