In today’s world where we can share photos of what is going on in our lives with anyone at a moment’s notice through the use of our smartphones and social media accounts, what role does photojournalism really play in our society? Is it becoming obsolete as a career?
With the release of social media websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, along with the invention of smartphones with fairly featured cameras in their own rights, many people feel that the role of typical photojournalists in spreading news has virtually vanished.
Now any witness to an event can simply snap a photo with their smartphone and post it to social media almost instantly, thus making it much easier to share news with the world, while most photojournalists use DSLR cameras, which do not allow instant sharing of the photos, thus forcing the photographer to wait until he or she has access to a computer to share their photos with the world.
And possibly even more important is the nature of the photos being shared on social media-the people taking these photos and sharing them online don’t have to wait to write an article about the photo or let their publisher see them first-they can simply post them instantly and say whatever they want about the event depicted in their photo.
Technology like this that allows anyone to become a type of journalist is the reason why many people believe that the roles of traditional journalists will soon vanish and be replaced by normal, everyday people.
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