THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF LOW YAT CRISIS
1.1 Introduction
Social media has generally been understood as a form of electronic platform which allows users to interact, communicate and express their ideas or opinions anytime, everywhere. Currently, with the development of the technologies, social media has become vital and ubiquitous accessible. We are able to know and update what was happening around the world without direct experience it. If there were any natural disaster happened around the world, we can update the latest news constantly through social networking sites. For instance, nowadays, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the most familiar media that are free to use by people in order to share information and common
Before 1990s, the advent of social media, traditional media such as newspapers, television and radio broadcasts are the main sources of news. Nevertheless, according to Sawyer and Chen (2012), people in today’s globalization society tend to believe and rely more on the social media rather than traditional media. Although social media brings convenience to the users, but it is still have several downsides which may directly influence people’s perceptions and behavior. Social media can influence people’s perceptions on many different aspects, for instances, on the communication, society, business and life.
The aim of the study will be focusing on the role of social media on the people’s perceptions of Low Yat crisis, which happened on 12 July, 2015 in the Low Yat Plaza Malaysia. Recently, the prevalent use of social media has facilitated the propagation of messages and the hasty diffusion of rumors after crises. If someone misuses the social media to purposely disseminate inaccurate information, this may eventually create a big problem to the
There is a doubt in terms of accuracy, credibility and reliability of the social media since everyone can access and comment whatever they want. Nowadays, everyone can become a reporter; they can express their thoughts and post their opinions for entirely free. Nevertheless, social media fail to prove its news release and information in terms of the accuracy, truth as well as reliability. Some users even take these opportunities to libel and insult others by spreading false information during time of crisis. Social media ease the spread and transmit of the rumors and it is difficult to verify the information’s reliability and accuracy. Hence, it will be continuing struggle between the accuracy and the speed of the information