Death of the newspaper?
News is not going to die. News will exist in one form or another. But will newspapers? Advertising has evolved away from influencing people to behave in a certain way, into a more subtle level of customised sophistication. Instead of any colour you like, so long as its black; marketing, as a science, has developed to the point where you can prepaint your car on a computer (theoretically, whether such a business was economic is another matter).
But what makes us buy the latest Apple, iPod or Rhihana hit? I think television, radio and other places we can hear what is being said. Advertising being carried by newspapers appears to be rapidly replaced by web advertising, or is it? The web has brought about cost free publishing, newspaper advertising is still more effective but as more people get their news online it is inevitable that media companies are facing an online existence. But there is competition. Lots of it. They suffer from a lack of brand. The one thing that major news outlets have, even if only briefly in the scheme of things, is brand recognition.
Placing advertising on a cost free medium carries no interest commitment on the part of the viewer. There is no contribution or investment when the thing being delivered is only cursorily viewed. Therefore the prediction is that the internet will more than take over journalism and that it will become a purely subscribed service. The delivery of advertising will be more succinct. The more inherent meaning is accepted more readily. Meaning is what is being delivered. Effective language delivers meaning. Of course the use of devices such as Kindle will also carry newspapers. Newspapers will create video (the NY Times does this well, as does the Guardian) and hope to attach an audience before the cash cow of column centimetres is subsumed by the internet tsunami. Or has that already happened?
The internet is both a place of professional writing (as you may purchase in a magazine) and amateur honest contributions. My articles are perhaps somewhere in between! As the library of OpEd articles accumulates, it will become more interesting to join the site to read the full article.
Full OpEd articles will be notified to members only – requires you register for this site (you can also contribute your own disturbing trends article, there is quite a bit to write about!):
See also:
The effects of the digital age on our ability to concentrate
