Critically discuss the role of social media and citizen journalism in society today and consider how this has impacted on traditional journalism thus far – using specific examples - and what it may mean for the future.

As Internet and technologies do not cease to evolve, it is accurate to state that social media and citizen journalism have become the pillars of the contemporary society and possess a major impact throughout the different industries. Social media has become a stepping stone to each person’s daily routine and the necessity that the general public has to be part of debates and events becomes even more striking. The focus of this essay is to critically discuss the role of social media and citizen journalism in society today and to consider how this has impacted on traditional journalism thus far and what I may mean for the future. In order to answer to this discussion, one will overview the influence and use of the internet within the United Kingdom, followed by a brief explanation of what social media and citizen journalism is while critically discussing their role within our society and their impact on journalism and analysing a future perspective of this reality.
In 2010, statistics showed that the British population holds the third place regarding the amount of time spent online per user with 36 hours and 74,2% of the households in the United Kingdom (UK) had internet access. Although, email, research and shopping were still popular, users engaged more in social networking and video viewing. Statistics showed that 51% of UK internet users read or download online news, newspapers and magazines; 45% listen to web radio or watch web TV; 43% post messages to chat sites, blogs or newsgroups and 38% upload self-created content.
Individuals are starting to prefer to gather their information and education through different platforms and social media plays a major role in this reality. Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies that allow users to communicate through an interactive form through internet forums, blogs, podcasts, photographs, video among several others. Its users are not only passive consumers but have become active users and have often