"Still", so what about "will be"?
The Internet has opened up a brand new medium for business, which many, both large corporations and petit home business, gloated over after having evidently profited much from rising popularity of E-commerce over the years. Everything that begins with an “E-” or related to the Internet are seemingly profitable. Yet, journalism, unfortunately, have not been one of the lucky ones seeing big money rolling in although it has clearly developed closely with the various digital advancements.
Statistical reports (Este, Warren, Connor, Brown, Pollard & O’Connor, 2008) have indicated that online news and journalism increased greatly in popularity over the year. This increase readership of online news has however resulted in a sharp decline of the offline readership. Traditional printed news are clearly faltering and in threat of losing their ‘mainstream’ in media.
The switchover from traditional to online news is logical and, well, not-at-all surprising. Firstly, news on the Internet are generally more promptly updated than the offline ones. Online news also allows a greater extent of interaction with its readers, bring about features like citizenship journalism as well as a more open discussion and feedback channels. Advancements in Internet and communication technologies, as well as the gradually improved readiness of Internet service increase the accessibility and convenience to news on the Internet. The global nature of the Internet allows news from all parts of the world to be accessible t almost everyone, and with all the high technological gadgets, literally at the fingertips. Moreover, online news channels are generally free and freer; freer in the sense that news are not longer required to be of formal formats and language, while free simply means that consumer generally do not have to pay for it.
The ‘free-of-charge’ nature may be an attractive encouraging more to read, yet, journalism as a business suffers economically. This hence suggests a heavier reliance of news organisations, especially private ones, on advertisements. Given that the Internet provides organisations with a variety of cheap and far-reaching modes of advertisements, say Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the competition for advertisers and commercial supports become even more competitive than before. These are all argued to have caused the news business to become overly commercialized thereby putting its focus on the wrong track (O'Grady, 2009). So, do government-owned news organisations seem to be more feasible and fitter to survive in the Internet age? Probably not in the western world where great emphasis is place on the democratic role of news media as the fourth estate.
No matter how much people are in favour of citizen journalism, most would agree that the society still need established and credible traditional news organisations. Yet, with traditional newspapers being gradual driven out of business, be it due to declining profits due to falling readership, intense online competition or lesser revenue earned due to the free-of-charge nature of the Internet, how long more will we have these up-to-standard media professionals with us in news media?
Reference
Este, J., Warren, C., Connor, L., Brown, M., Pollard, R. & O’Connor, T. 2008. Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism. [Internet] Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Available from: http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/foj_report_final.pdf [Accessed 29 May 2011].
Idisarkette. 2010. Newspaper Advertising in Singapore as Dead as the West. [Image] Available from: http://www.idrisarkette.com/newspaper-advertising-in-singapore-as-dead-as-the-west/ [Accessed 29 May 2011].
O'Grady, C. 2009. Who Pays for Journalism in the Post Print Era? [Internet] FAIR. Available from: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3900 [Accessed 29 May 2011].
With the internet, people are able to receive their news from a wider range of people with differing perspectives. This offers contrasting insight towards the same event. For the public, this is beneficial for them as the internet provides a one-stop location for them to source for the information they need. Indeed though, journalism has been unfortunate to face a downslope in profit levels and consumer base. Media companies have to find new and creative ways to attract readership on the internet by differentiating themselves from the rest by providing credible, quality and updated pieces of news instead of sensationalizing their news stories.
ReplyDeletexoxo, calcy