Social Media Reliance: News Channels as Source of Information in Pakistan
Abstract
Social Media is now becoming a vast source of getting information relating to almost every aspect of social, political, religious and physiological perspectives in a democratizing country like Pakistan. This paper attempts to explore the reliance to news channels of Pakistani TV on Social Media with reference to information, ratings, policies and issues. Qualitative research design was followed to explore the phenomenon of reliance to social media. Snow ball sampling technique was used to collect data of media persons through gathered through in-depth interviews of participants. Participant’s response was thematically analyzed for the evaluation of results. Different aspects of the verification process of news channels the information gained through were analyzed. Theories of uses, gratification and media dependency were related with results. It was concluded that the search engine ads, display ads, micro and macro targeting, Google demographics, audience bar, sprout etc. were the major source of information for audience and productive for the TV channels. It was also concluded that brand awareness and brand reputations sustains the attention of its viewers on TV channels so, services by software’s analyst can aid in perceptions of information.
Authors
Dr. Muhammad Rashid Khan
Assistant Professor, Institute of Communication Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Kashif Ali
M Phil Communication Studies, Institute of Communication Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Asmat Ullah
Independent Researcher and Development Expert, Islamabad, Pakistan
Keywords
Brand Reputation, News Channels, Reliance, Social Media, Source of Information