Julia Dallas

Something that stuck with me throughout my Intro to Digital Communications course was that social media is becoming a powerful tool in creating movements. Social media is also becoming the new way to receive news. Hashtag activism is something I think will continue to thrive. For example, #MeToo, #ClimateCrisis, and #BlackLivesMatter have all been hashtags used to bring awareness to a social issue. As someone who wants to go into a career with social media and multi-media journalism, this will drastically affect my career. As people look to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok for information, my future will be finding ways to keep factual, hard hitting journalism, but also cater to the social media audience.

As we talked about in class, not many news outlets are adopting TikTok, however the site continues to grow. My case study was on the United Nation Climate Change Secretariat’s Instagram and how they have used #ClimateChange and #ClimateCrisis to bring awareness to the importance of sustainability. The UNFCCC has also created a TikTok that has everyday people talking about climate change. If the UNFCCC sees the value in creating TikTok, so should major news outlets. Adapting is the only way to survive the digital age and news outlets must work harder to engage every generation.