Facebook Fever

It's been almost impossible to read a paper or news site in Norway without coming across a story about Facebook these last few weeks, so here's a quick look at the key headlines of this recent media obsession:

Propaganda reports that Norway is the European country with the highest proportion of the population on Facebook: over 170,000 Norwegians, or 3% of the population have a Facebook profile. The same media site found that 519 articles about Facebook had been published in Norwegian media since 2005, about 450 (!) of them since the beginning of April. The Norwegian Press Union says it's sceptical to the way Norwegian journalists are exposing their relationships to their sources by befriending them on Facebook, and questions are raised over how several Norwegian journalists are 'facebook friends' with politicians (links via jill/txt)

The media frenzy even gave birth to the big Facebook conspiracy the other week. In the ultimate undercover investigation, Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet revealed the Facebook friends of the rich, powerful and/or famous (a little bird whispered to me that Dagbladet has a particularly large faction of journalists lurking on Facebook, so beware) :

This, perhaps to be expected, is also what the nation's 'Fleet Street' journalists will be discussing at the press club on Thursday: "Facebook: friend or foe?" Can journalists maintain their integrity when they expose all their friends and sources online? These days the press club has even discarded the required membership cards I kept loosing, so I assume the debate will be open...

Disclosure (23/5): unexpectedly, an op-ed I wrote for DN (behind subscription wall) on the increased use of social networks for commercial and political purposes was published the same day I posted this.

Comments

[Jill]

Jøss! Den forsiden så jeg ikke - håper det er OK, jeg har lånt bildene for å skrive om det selv - si fra om du vil jeg skal ta dem ned.

Det er ganske sprøtt, dette Facebook-hysteriet i mediene.