A couple of weeks ago, all of Morocco spent five days straight watching the live news about the rescue operation of the five-year-old child Rayan who fell into a will in a rural area in Chefchaouen, Morocco. The horrible incident suddenly became the most followed news all over Morocco and other countries in the MENA and around the world and sparked worldwide empathy because of a live stream on Facebook from the villagers who first started documenting the incident and then followed by the online media platforms on the same social media site who traveled to the region to provide live streams of the rescue operation.
The interest in and rise of online news channels on social media is not a new phenomenon as it played a great role in transmitting the messages and voices of people during the Arab Spring protests, in Morocco, however, this would be the first incident that would unite all Moroccans and highlight the rise of social media as a new form of news source in the country. Using social media in Morocco is on a constant rise, and nowadays, many social media apps mentioned hereafter, are used as a form of receiving news for all generations of Morocco. According to the latest data by Data reported, 23.8 million Moroccans out of the 37 million population have used social media platforms since the beginning of 2022. WhatsApp is the largely used app in Morocco by 73,7% of the population followed by Facebook by 70,50%, and the META apps are followed by YouTube by 66,5%.
Online journalism is replacing the formal TV news and printed press, Hespress is considered to be the first online news outlet in Morocco, besides its website, it has more than 18 million followers on Facebook and more than 4 million on Instagram, it provides credible news in the fastest form, meeting the growing demand of receiving the news in the fastest form. Chouf TV is another growing news outlet in Morocco with 21 million followers on Facebook and 3.5 million followers on Instagram, unlike Hespress, Chouf Tv is not considered a credible source of news in Morocco due to the fact that they do not hire trained journalists and mostly report on stories that give a buzz, in addition to the use of catchy headlines. Chouf TV is also known for its constant live streams that reach a million views, especially during Ryan’s incident as it was the first online news outlet to reach the area. Both news outlets in addition to others have received large funding from the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports.
Social media has allowed for a new wave of news to develop and play an important role in transferring the news in a fast and instant manner, unlike the formal media. The social media sites allowed the media sites to share the news with their readers from all walks of life free of charge which was not the case before the social media rise, except for TV and Radio news which used to come in specific timings, today, Moroccans receive their news from social media by one click and learn about the different events happening all around the globe and not only in Morocco whenever and wherever they are. The need and demand for instant information are due to the fact that we now live in a world linked all together by social media sites, therefore, the importance of knowing what is happening in different parts of the world seems like an urgent and important matter.
The new digital media is benefiting from social media by providing their services following the demand of the users; catchy headlines, use of emojis, special formats, and of course using all available tools provided by the social media sites, they are competitive in reaching to the news first and publishing them in a speedy manner; only one post can do the job as social media users tend to not read full-on articles and prefer to watch videos of 1-minute length. The formal media for instance is not adapting very well to this change and growth, the example of 2M one of the official states media, previously the leading media outlet, has only 6 million followers on Facebook and is not posting and reporting as the digital media outlets do.
Social media has also allowed normal citizens to act as citizen journalists and make their voices heard through blogs, posts, and videos (Lives, Reels, etc.) with captivating headlines and innovative content that attract followers and allow them to engage with them. During Covid lockdown one of the content creators Mustapha Swinga created an educative content about the virus by explaining and providing facts and information that resonated with the users more than the official TV Channels, due to his innovative and educational content, the official media even tried to use his content on TV to educate people about the virus and the situation.
The rising demand for receiving rapid information with little to no text is indeed harming journalism, and of course, helps in spreading fake news as well. People nowadays tend to prefer looking at images, videos, and small descriptions of the news instead of reading articles or making sure that what they saw or read is actually true. With the rapid life that we live in; it is only logical to see a change in people’s attitudes towards reading or taking time to learn about any topic, but that does not mean that journalists should drop their ethics and methods or prepare concrete journalistic work in order to satisfy the demands of the readers or to gain few thousand followers on social media. Social media made it possible for everyone to learn about others’ news; therefore, it is also possible to better the outcome of news on these platforms through both catchy and effective journalistic pieces.