Every user is a social butterfly in this country and they count on the gossips and the information circulated on Facebook to a great extent. Two things are to be noticed here – gossip and the other one is information. When a piece of information is not based on facts, that may be termed as gossip. The problem arises when we start believing every piece of information (which may be a gossip as well) circulated on the social networking sites. And we have already witnessed many such events (such as Ramu incident) where people have carried out vandalism or even killed innocent people believing gossip or rumours disseminated on Facebook. But the question is – why are people getting persuaded by everything they see on Facebook so blindly? Do you find any connection between such blind belief and the utter failure of the mainstream media?

There is no denying that the mainstream media (both electronic and print) has utterly failed to live up to the mass readers/viewers’ expectations in the recent times. As media cannot cater to every conceivable need of the readers/viewers, they have turned away from mainstream media and an inclination to social networking sites have gradually grown among them. Well, if we analyze some points, it will be very clear how social media are actually taking over the role of the mainstream media.

First, the most vital duty of the media is to enlighten the readers or viewers with the right information. Especially when it comes to momentous events of the country, people used to rely highly on media. But in the recent years mainstream media could not rise to the occasion and satisfy the readers’ thirst for information. On the other hand, people got to know about many things on the social networking sites like Facebook.

Second, the mainstream media has lost its credibility owing to lack of objectivity. Objective journalism is gradually turning into a fallacy and only a handful of media houses are trying hard to cling to the ethics of journalism despite lots of barriers created deliberately. Most of the media houses are now owned and controlled by business magnets where journalists have very little role to play in the policymaking process. Consequently, the prime responsibility of the media outlets has been experiencing a drastic change and they are now more focused on serving the purposes of the business entities. As a result, the readers/viewers are also shifting their attention from mainstream media to social media (as those sites are still considered to be independent platforms for expressing your subjective opinions).

So, people are no more dependent on the news published or telecast in the media. Rather they resort to something virtual like Facebook and that’s why it has become so easy to spread propaganda or rumour on the social networking sites.