Snapchat supplants traditional media at Janadriyah

Press and television are no longer the only means to cover the events at Al-Janadriyah this year, with citizens now competing with journalists and reporters to cover public events using social and new media applications that allow them to broadcast events live with a push of a button on their smart devices.

This year, Snapchat was famous for capturing the activities and crafts on display at Al-Janadriyah festival.

Many visitors used applications such as Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter to document and broadcast live everything happening on the ground and share them with friends and followers.

One visitor, Abdulaziz Anzi, said that new media had become a point of direct contact to communicate any event without a journalist or reporter functioning as an intermediary.

“I follow many of the accounts of some celebrities and other ordinary people and enjoy sharing with them the events at Al-Janadriyah. This has become a prominent feature in the Saudi society recently in most of the things happening in the country,” he said.