The Disadvantages Of Traditional Media And Social Media

It seems online media is overshadowing traditional media… However, traditional media is still trustworthy. Audiences can compare the news they receive [from social media and traditional media] and make conclusions. As traditional media is controlled by authorized organizations, the information is examined properly, it gains higher trust… People tend to use social media to get news, but sometimes this comes from traditional media news that they get online.

Besides the global and local trend of using social media, it is also worth noting that the increase in social media use comes from the unique characteristic of Vietnam’s traditional media publications.

In [Vietnam], traditional media is government-owned, so communication activities are quite

Social media is the fastest communication platform… It is a two-way communication channel so we can communicate with our customers to provide solutions in the fastest manner. In contrast, traditional [media] is more of a one-way communication tool that the customers can only read without any [conversation to verify or compare the information]. – Participant 1D, an in-house practitioner with three years of experience.

The unwanted spread of harmful information for organizations on social media leads to another concern of this platform, which is control. Five participants agreed that controllability (or uncontrollability) is the major obstacle that prevents organizations from adopting social media in their crisis communication. On social media, stakeholders are free to interpret (or misinterpret) and share crisis communication while organizations may have little influence or interference with it. An organization’s intended communication goal may not always be achieved. Hence, some participants expressed that using social media makes crisis communication harder and less

Different people have different ways to define control. Some believe losing control equals inability to interfere with netizens’ content and influence their thoughts, while others believe that it means not achieving their desired [communication] goals. There are other definitions, but these two are the most common. That’s why people are cautious and use social media to a smaller extent. – Participant 1B, an agency practitioner with 19 years of experience.

[Social media’s] weakness is that there are many flows of different information or different versions of our information. We don’t know how people will interpret or interact with them. – Participant 1H, an in-house practitioner with 10 years of experience.

As stated earlier, another uncontrollable factor is that social media makes crisis communication faster, as it carries information to audiences almost instantly and effectively. Negative information about an organization, including speculations, rumors and criticisms, can be spread online just as quickly as positive