We’re passionate about understanding the impact social media is having, and how it is changing the media and communications landscape. We want to know what this means to reporters on an individual level; how it is influencing what takes place in the newsroom; how it is helping shape the decisions journalists are making about the future of newsgathering and reporting. We want to understand the implications on public relations and what it means to our clients: how we need to adapt and deploy social media effectively in service to corporate objectives while being mindful of how it is fundamentally changing the rules of engagement.

At the beginning of 2011, we kicked-off a new series of informal recorded interviews with journalists, with friends in the media we feel can give us particularly compelling insight into these changes. These conversations evolved into the Access Social: Scene video series. These sessions typically run 7-10 minutes, and take place in a variety of settings: amidst the frenetic action in Austin at South by Southwest (SxSW), in our New York and San Francisco offices during journalist visits for “brown bag” lunches, as well as at tradeshows, conferences and industry events.

What these journalists have been sharing with us unequivocally reinforces the prevailing wisdom: that the advent of social media and citizen journalism, with new communications tools and technologies, are rewriting the way news and information are delivered and they are having profound effects on journalists, journalism, and the state of the media industry. Equally fascinating are the anecdotal and personal observations that emerge in these interviews about what this transformation means on a practical, operational, and philosophical level as reporters respond to and help create new mediums of communicating with their viewers and readers.

Access Social Media Usage in Corporate Communications survey