Differentiate the functions of blogs, Facebook and Twitter. In addition, what role do they play to co-exist with the traditional media?

According to Technorati (2013), more than 90% of brands surveyed for the 

Technorati Media Digital Influence Report shows that they have presence in Facebook, about 85% on twitter and only 32% goes to blogs. 

(Source: www.toprankblog.com)

Facebook is a social networking that can connect with friends, posting updates, sharing photos and links to interesting stuff. However, on twitter you update your status in up to 140 characters. You can get instant response to your tweets and tweets are retweeted that enables others to see. Blog is a site where people post articles on a topic or about their life with longer descriptions and writing stuff on an ongoing basis.

New forms of media publishing are emerging and substituting the old forms of media. When digital convergence, global networking and personal computing are combined together, thus creating a large impact on these new media formations (Naughton, 2006).

The emergence of blogging somehow affected the conventional print journalism (Naughton, 2006). What makes blogging different to the conventional journalism is that blogging is no longer a one-way-street (Naughton, 2006). Blogging provides people freedom to express what is in their mind, which is related to the public sphere. Habermas (1962) stated that public sphere is where private people are connected as a public and unite the needs of society with the state. It is important for people’s opinion to be heard by the authorities, whether it is for or against.

Facebook had become the most visited sites in USA in March 2010 (CNN Money, 2010). Therefore, organisations have the opportunity to publish news or information through these social networking sites. This allows publishers to people faster and more convenient unlike waiting for news to be printed on a newspaper or waiting for a certain time for the news in television

References

CNN Money 2010, Facebook Traffic tops Google for the week, viewed 8 April 2013,

< http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/16/technology/facebook_most_visited/ >

Habermas 1989, Does Internet Create Democracy, Public Sphere, viewed 8 April 2013,

< http://www.zipworld.com.au/~athornto/thesis2.htm>

Naughton, John 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, viewed on 8 April 2013, <http://reuteursinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/discussion/blogging.html>

Technorati 2013, Technorati Media's 2013 Digital Influence Report, viewed 8 April 2013, <http://technorati.com/business/article/technorati-medias-2013-digital-influence-report/>