Week4 - Who will pay for Journalism? Is it just about money?

Thanks to the new technology, we are in a new era in terms of communication and unfortunately the news industry, particularly print, have been very slow to change the way they do business.

The new technology might be the greatest achievement in the 21^st century. Though this technology, a great change has taken place in people’s daily life. Before the use of new media technology, people had to seek information from the traditional tools, such as print media. In contrast, the new technology gives people more flexibility in getting news and sharing information, such as online news website.

In addition, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have made news a more participatory experience than ever before. People share links of news stories by e-mail, post articles on their Facebook and other networking feeds and tweet them on Twitter -- often following up by discussing the articles on message boards and other sites.

This shows that traditional media is largely affected by the new media. Through this week’s seminar presentation, we found that more and more people tend to get information from the new media, and it seems to be the inevitable trend of the twenty-first century. New media is more time-saving, space-saving and so on. However, this does not mean that the mainstream media will be completely replaced by the new media. In the past, because of the dominant influence of mainstream media, advertisers are willing to spend money on the mainstream media as most people were getting information through newspapers. According to Warren, “one of the basic principles of free press demands from newspapers to operate in a competitive market, where they depend on advertising clients to make profit” (Warren, 2010). Today, although the new media occupies a great position, a majority of people still believe that the mainstream media represent the professional news reporting and deeper investigative reporting, for instance, senior citizens and middle-aged people still subscribing to newspapers.

After all, we haven’t experienced a communication revolution like this probably since the print media was invented. But I don’t think that means automatically that the print industry is doomed. I just think it means that they are going to have to rethink the way they do business.

Reference

Warren, C., 2010, The Future of Journalism, Life in the clickstream II, Our Audience, P32-33, viewed on 23^th of May, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia.