News in the 21st Century

THE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL MEDIA ON TRADITIONAL NEWS BUSINESS AND PRACTICE

I. Context

Over the course of the 20 century and now into the 21 century, news media hace evolved from daily printed newspapers to radio programs, to 24-hour television stations, to Internet websites, to social media outlets. Today, traditional news organizations often struggle to compete with modern communication techniques and business models. With breaking news spreading instantly through a variety of venues, printed daily papers strain to maintain readership numbers and profits.

II. Challenge Statement

Design a website that displays and summarizes your research into a concise survey of the history of news media and their supporting business models. The website should target the evolution of news media in the digital age (approximately 1995-present), with specific references to news websites, blogs, social media, and smartphone apps.

The solution should address how readers' habits for consuming news have changed, and how traditional media outlets have adapted—both successfully and unsuccessfully—to the digital age. The solution should consider the efforts from a revenue/profit standpoint and from a quality-of-journalism standpoint.

Finally, teams should present well-researched suggestions about how existing news models might be made both more profitable and of a better quality. Consideration should be given to the balance between a "free, open Internet" and the need for news outlets to compensate their professional journalists.

News Sites

In the past, the main way for people to receive news was through newspapers. In the 1960s, newspapers began to use digital production processes and computers for operations. In the early 2000s, newspapers in the United States alone were selling 55 million copies a day. That all quickly changed. Advertising revenues for newspapers began to decrease and newspapers moved onto the internet. Amongst thousands of American newspapers, the top 5 are The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily News, The Los Angeles Times, and The Chicago Tribune, all of which have their own online website. Their websites are just another way to reach the same news, bringing convenience into the modern society living.

News websites gave newspaper companies more opportunities and yet another outlet to reach the public, increasing profits and the amount of people who are informed on current events. As the lives of people get increasingly busy, sometimes "keeping up on the news" is cast to the wayside in favor of relaxation and recreation. News websites are a way for people to receive their news in a timelier manner and to fit "staying informed" into their schedule. The Internet is immediate. Because news is going digital, the rate at which the public can become aware of events is drastically different. Before news websites, people would have to wait for the nightly news broadcast or the morning's paper to hear about things. A wait that was once hours long has been condensed to mere minutes, the only limitation the speed at which reporters can write the story.

News websites have become increasingly significant to the news media and have also changed the way news reporters go about doing things. Now, reporters are being taught how to shoot videos for the web and write in a certain manner that is more effective on Internet news pages. You can predict that news websites won't be going anywhere any time soon. As the public learns to live in a technological world, print newspapers will continue to decrease until becoming virtually obsolete. Traditional news organizations are losing readership and profits at an alarming rate, the downward spiral that begin with radio and television taking a nose dive as the internet becomes ever present in our lives. Society is going digital. The news just has to keep up.

Blogs

Blogs have become increasingly significant and an integral part of online culture. An incredible amount of people read blogs now, whether they're informative blogs that are associated with traditional news media or they're related to someone's personal interests and hobbies. Blogs, like much of modern technology, have a short history just becoming significant in the past five to ten years. 1994 is the year of the first blog. Then, blogs were referred to as "weblogs" and were later shortened in 1999. It wasn't until the early 2000s when blogs began to experience growth. In 1999, there were only 23 blogs in existence on the Internet. In 2006, there were over 5 million.

When blogs reached mainstream culture, they truly became a key aspect in news media. News organizations and media websites teamed up with other blogs or started their own to provide more coverage. Millions of people could now access the published thoughts of others, many of which pertain to current events and news stories. Covered events range from being factual to highly opinionated, giving the public a diverse view of what's happening in the world.

Large news organizations began to use blogs as readership of them grew, and this provided a very useful vehicle for providing the public with more and easier accessed news coverage. Acting as a more informal setting that news websites, blogs also allow for the broadcasting of editorial opinions. Companies found that more people were apt to read the news if they also got a sense of how others were reacting to it. Added opinions in articles shape the way the public feels about issues and garners more passion for the topic.

Aside from professional blogs, websites like Tumblr and Blogger attract a huge range of people, many of which are completely unassociated with the news industry and blog simply for leisure. Tumblr alone hosts over 96 million blogs as of March 2013, and the number is steadily growing. Social trends and news stories spread virally, traveling through millions of people's computer screens and countless people click, "Reblog." Now, news organizations are local gossip circles are unnecessary for the public to stay informed. The Internet and blogs make it so "traveling by word of mouth" has a whole new meaning, spanning globally rather than locally.

Today, you will find that almost every large news source has a blog. You can predict in the future that there will be more people who will turn to blogs as well as news websites to get their information as print sources become less and less prevalent in modern society.

Social Media

The way that news is assembled and consumed will always continue to evolve. However, for now, some of the top news stories around the globe are breaking first on different platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Social Media has definitely grown to become a key aspect to the news industry in the digital age. Before, social media networks were used mainly for interacting with people. It was a way to keep in contact with family members or friends, exchange information, share pictures, and announce life events. Now, it has become a tool that people can use to learn about the different things that are happening in our world. Many are turning to social media websites instead of using traditional news outlets, which are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the digital age. Even journalists use social media to help them discover new and unique stories and uncover different sources.

Think about it. Where did people first hear about the 2009 Hudson River plane crash? The news craze started when someone tweeted a picture. How about the death of a Bahraini protestor who was shot and killed by army forces in 2011? The news of this incident was rapidly spread by a video that went viral on YouTube, almost reaching over 2 million views in a week. Even more recently, how did people find out about the Sandy Hook School shooting? For most students in Delaware school, Cab Calloway, people found out about the shooting during class after they saw #Newtown and #PrayForNewtown trending on Twitter. While newspapers do have social media feeds and pages, the majority of publicity is not done by an organization, but rather, by the public. People spread information, people talk, and people trend. These social media websites do something for news organizations that newspapers never could; they allow for communication. Friends can get outraged or passionate about a topic together, feeding off of the emotions and opinions of others. Social media is a vessel for persuasion, and the only thing needed to initiate change is the introduction of a news topic.

The reason why social media is so significant and will continue to be a very important resource is because it allows information to be spread amongst a large group of people so quickly. The readership of a newspaper is increased by millions, even billions, reaching the entire industrialized world in almost no time at all. The immediacy of it all is very beneficial to not only journalists but also the public and our digital generation as we struggle to stay informed about global affairs.

Smartphone Apps

The first Blackberry appeared on the market in 1999. The iPhone was introduced in 2007. Those are just two smartphones that have become popular and significant to our culture and many generations. Almost everyone you see now has an iPhone, and they can't seem to get off of it. Their fingers are constantly tapping on the small screen. What could they be doing? You can definitely guess that they're on one of the latest and popular apps.

Apple's App Store was introduced in 2008. In addition, Blackberry's App World, Nokia's Ovi Store, and Google Play offer a competitive selection of apps for purchase by the public. In 2009, those four stores sold a total of $828 million dollars combined through app sales. A year later, they sold $2155 million dollars combined. That's almost triple the amount. Smartphone apps are so popular because there are such a variety of apps. There are games, educational apps, financial apps, music apps, and so many more.

Most importantly, there are apps designated for the news media. Countless news organizations have taken the initiative to create their own apps, and those who have not have fallen greatly behind in this suddenly mobile market. Consumers no longer have to pick up a newspaper or type in their favorite newspaper's URL, news websites such as the New York Times and Wall Street have their own app. For those people that are so busy that even a trip to the computer would take too much time, mobile apps are designed to be at the fingertips of the public within seconds. And for the companies, losing profit because of a decrease in print sales is offset by the surge in app purchases by a public greedy for ways to expedite daily activities.

Not limiting their outreach to solely one app, news organizations get through to people through the apps of blogs and social media companies. These apps help to deliver news to the public, targeting a younger demographic that has no direct interest in skimming through a news app. To the many that are constantly on social media apps throughout the day, a quick "tweet" or status popping up on their newsfeed grabs their attention. Newspapers are taking advantage of this, reaching out to an increasingly lazy population through every facet of communication possible.

Apps also allow companies to utilize a tool called push notifications to bring breaking news to consumers even faster. Push notifications work by bringing a notification to the screen of your phone from a specific app, even if that app isn't in use. Once you touch it, it will direct you to the app. If a significant and important news story breaks, news apps can send you a push notification where the public is informed and aware of the story instantly. There is no waiting for the morning paper or the night broadcast, no reading news websites or skimming newsfeeds. One can simply look at the screen of their phone to know when a major event occurs. This is perhaps the greatest accomplishment of news organizations to date. Print media is becoming obsolete and the public is choosing to be less informed, whether it be from a lack of time or a lack of interest. Instant alerts are instantly informative and gratifying, catching the attention of all. For this reason, smartphone apps are very significant to the digital age and will only become more significant in years to come.

Solutions

Readers' habits for consuming news is always changing and evolving with the development of new technologies. Now that we are in the digital age, traditional media outlets have adapted and made some changes. However, those changes have had their ups and downs, some successful and others not.

Though news websites are very useful, the revenue for them has decreased in recent years. The climax for revenue for news websites was in 2005 when it reached a total of $49,435. Four years later however, the revenue was cut almost nearly in half to $27,564 and continued to decrease the next year by 6.3%, followed closely by a decrease of 7.3%. As the traffic for news websites slows, the desirability of Internet advertising on them diminishes greatly. Outside companies aren't willing to spend as much for ad spots, which is greatly the reason for such a significant drop in profit. The effort it takes for the world's public to reach out to a news website to stay informed is unfortunately becoming unpractical with today's busy society. News websites emerged in an effort to retain readership in an increasingly digital world. However, society is now not only digital but fast-paced. Readers need immediate updates and short snippets of information. Only when their attention has been caught do they even consider reading a long article. Journalistic quality is thus sacrificed for timely updates.

The revenue for blogs is usually always in a stable condition because of the money it takes in from advertisements, paid memberships, and even donations. News-related blogs, however, are similar enough to news websites that many will forgo reading them all together. In contrast, the opinion-packed blog posts that have a large readership, lose much of the integrity and factual qualities of professional news articles. Writers, many unpaid, choose not to do sufficient research and often include false or extremely biased information. This gives the public a skewed view of events, a view that is sometimes never corrected.

In today's world, social media has become an increasingly significant aspect to news media. However, it has changed the way journalists and news centers distribute their information. Journalists will use social media to discover and report news stories, both to get an edge of competing news organizations and reach a larger audience. That said, there are some ugly and negative effects of social media on journalism. Many sources from social media sites, whether it is a Facebook status or a tweet, aren't always accurate. This has caused numerous reporters over the years to be fired from their jobs for reporting something based off of a poorly constructed and unreliable source. It's as if anyone with a blog, Facebook, Twitter, or simply a cell phone can be a videographer, reporter, or news editor. One has to be extremely careful when taking these sources into account and do additional research for verification purposes to retain high quality journalism. Regardless of these dangers, social media news coverage attracts a large readership, satisfying the public with immediate news that's in a convenient location. Social media allows for the quick spreading of news, which has the potential to quickly gather excitement and even direct interested people to news websites to get the hard facts. For that times that people don't choose to read a related article, they'll settle with the quick and questionably accurate information, having no use for news websites or the like. This disinterest is one of the main causes of news websites' decrease in profit and social media websites' increase in it.

The revenue for smartphone apps continues to increase because of such a high demand for smartphones themselves. In 2009, the revenue for the Apple App Store alone was $769 million, and in 2010, it was $1782 million. By the middle of 2011, it had climbed into the billions. Apps are a compromise between immediate satisfaction and journalistic quality. People get their information fast, but specially- designed news applications allows for that quick information to be accurate and easy to access.

No matter what age we're in, whether it is the digital age of now or a revolutionary and innovative age of the future, the way that news is gathered will continue to change, evolve, and effect the way that readers consume news.