Welcome to my blog. My name is Dwight and I will be taking you through my journey of COM 6630 Strategic Communication and Emerging Media that I am currently taking at Troy University's graduate program. I will be discussing weekly topics related to the current events of media and how it is ever changing from the days of just radio, television, newspapers and magazines. Today we have PCs, Macs, smartphones, ipads, tablets, you name it today it is so incredible how fast it is to get the lasts news and information all at the tip of your fingers. So allow me to again welcome you to my blog and these next nine weeks we will be going through different topics of communication and the ever changing world of media.Is Traditional Media Dying?
That is the question that we keep hearing. A lot of things that have been happening the last couple of years do indicate that traditional media is definitely on the decline. Take for instance, Time Warner selling off most of their magazines to Meredith, which is a smaller publisher in Des Moines. Their looking to focus more on their properties that is the most profitable.Traditional media such as newspapers and magazines are being forced to get with the times and evolve by incorporating online options and printing less. Instead of 5 days a week they print 3 days a week. Even with traditional media having to go this route, most people still consider traditional media to be the most reliable source of information as information online tends to be a lot less reliable.
With the rise of new media and the old media ways becoming absolute isn't all good news though. The shrinking number of print readers is also shrinking the number of jobs available. With the economy still on shaky ground this doesn't bold well. There are new jobs being created that cater to new media such as jobs for staff made just for online. As I was saying earlier about traditional media having to use new media to stay relevant. I have a subscription to Game Informer and have been subscribing for years. I had always gotten the physical copies sent to my house every month but last year I switched to the digital magazine. Not only do I get the new issues faster than the print version, it also has links, photos, and videos exclusive to the digital version. So, they can cater to both print and digital for customers. Most of the print industry is following suit and adding digital versions of the print additions and also when news breaks they can update their websites accordingly.Some of the negatives of all this new technology and the quickness of getting content at the snap of a finger is it has isolated people from each other. Gone are the days when you got a paper and a cup of coffee and sat with your pals and talked about current events. Most people now go to Facebook, Twitter, etc. to talk. I myself have experienced being in the same room with my family or coworkers and no one is talking. Everyone has a smartphone, tablet or other digital device in their hands. The new generation of kids growing up are accustomed to this and see nothing wrong. They don't know how to communicate with their peers because everything is done online.
In the music industry this has also been an issue. Gone are the days of people going out and buying physical CDs, everything is done through iTunes, amazon etc. Record labels are having to give a percentage to the online music stores to get the albums on there. Major record labels are having a hard time with change more so than other forms of media. If they don't adapt to this digital age it will be the end as we know for major record labels.
One of the articles we read talks about Jeff Bezos and his purchase of the Washington Post. He thinks newspapers should be more like Amazon. That is an interesting thing to say. The three big ideas that Bezos had at Amazon were, long-term thinking, customer obsession, and willingness to invent. With the purchase of the Washington Post, Bezos can take the print industry in a whole new direction as he did with Amazon. Only time will tell if his purchase will make a difference in today's print industry.
According to this percentage change in audience that came from one of the articles we read between 2010-2011 online dominated the other mediums by a large margin. What does this mean? It means that this is only going to continue as the years go by. How traditional media deals with it is the question. We have seen some of the changes that have been made with integrating online options for customers as well as some companies going all digital. Digital is the future and it's not going anywhere, as for traditional media being dead, it's far from that but the decline is real. I hope you all have enjoyed my first blog post. Please stay tuned for my next post coming soon.
Greetings Dwight,
ReplyDeleteYour points were well made and I appreciate your input of personal relationship to the topic at hand. I also see that the new talk on the town is related to the demise of traditional media such as radio and print. In our readings we saw that this is happening to a small extent in big name publications, but on the other side of the spectrum, small town and specialty newspapers are doing just fine. Also, in the Poynter article, a decent amount when compared to web native, 43% of news consumers access important information from established sources still linked to old print giants.
Just as you said, “newspapers and magazines are being forced to get with the times”, we can see in the USA TODAY article that some print media companies are seeing the brighter side of incorporating the web and mobile aspects alongside the printed material. With the addition of pay-walls or freemiums, many are seethe the possibility for growth. This article also mentioned that circulation revenue is also increasing, so we shouldn’t take the newspaper ‘round back just yet. I still subscribe to printed magazines and would appreciate complementary online editions to view on my tablet, but this wouldn’t cause me to switch over to digital only. I am still much too ‘old schooled’ to be without paper. On the other hand, I do read a free monthly newspaper and would pay to receive it digitally, as the newspaper is not large but I would like to access the articles without having to store the paper. There are many opportunities out these to try out. Just as with the article on the Colorado newspaper described its scattering of pieces as almost planting seeds in unturned soil.
I totally feel you on the lost communication tip. My children drive me crazy when they walk around or get in the car with iPod in hand and ear buds blocking out the real world. We are at the beginning of their spring break and I look forward to banishing these devices and playing board games and reminding them that they still like to read paper books! It’s all about keeping a balance while we adapt to new modes.
Great blog posting. I typically write everything on MS Word first because it catches most of my grammatical errors even if I forget to press the spell check button. But things still seem to get past me and into my posting from time to time. So do better than me and remember to check you posts before hitting submit.
Take care,
Alisha Brown