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This article was originally published in Médianes' 10 Links newsletter, sent every other Monday at 2 pm. Sign up here (for free).
- PLATFORM (Nieman Lab) — For the first time, social networks are becoming the primary source of information in the United States, and the trend is spreading globally. Newsrooms now face a choice between two paths: embrace this shift at the risk of losing control, or attempt to resist it and build alternatives.
- SITE (The New Yorker) — Meanwhile, readers are abandoning media sites and apps, threatening the connection between newsrooms and their communities. Can sites still compete with social networks? Some media outlets believe they can.
- PLATFORM (Philosophie Magazine) — Is getting informed on social media inherently wrong? Not necessarily, but it's clear that these spaces enforce opaque rules that make information sharing difficult and force media outlets to adapt to circumvent censorship and automated moderation.
- INFLUENCER (The Long Story) — Faced with these new habits, certain personalities like Johnny Harris, Cleo Abram, or Joss Fong found real success on YouTube. Their common trait: they were journalists at Vox before launching their own channel. Faced with a "starification" of journalists, are newsrooms capable of making room for these new profiles?
- TOOL (Press Gazette) — Creating engaging, well-calibrated videos for social media doesn't happen by accident. Journalist Sophia Smith Galer created an application to help her colleagues write (with AI) short video scripts for TikTok or Instagram based on their articles.
- COMMUNITY (The Verge) — To create direct connections with their audiences, media outlets have been betting on spaces insulated from algorithms: newsletters, WhatsApp, Discord… But these channels are now falling prey to automation and AI. The latest example: WhatsApp automatically summarizing conversations.
- PAPER (WIRED) — As social networks deteriorate (hate, censorship, AI everywhere), zines are making a strong comeback, especially among Gen Z. A tool being explored by newsrooms, like WIRED, seeking to rebuild healthy and independent contact with their readers.
- PAPER (Medians) — Others draw inspiration from old-fashioned distribution. The association Le Bruit qui court distributes its gazette with street criers, for example. A way of bringing human contact back to the heart of news, against the grain of endless scrolling.
- AI (Futurism) — The other major trend is the growing use of conversational AI for information gathering. But the more sophisticated they become, the more egregious errors they can produce. A troubling contradiction as their usage explodes.
- AI (MIT Technology Review) — AI is also driving up electricity consumption : 4.4% of U.S. electricity today, expected to reach 12% by 2028. A trajectory incompatible with the restraint essential for ecological transition, even as AI adoption becomes inevitable, almost reflexive.
