Essay

News Corporation ….

‘Why and with what success are traditional media institutions adapting to the challenge posed by new/digital media?'

Introduction : As new/digital media is constantly developing, this has meant that the audience have more power in terms of creating their own view and values. New/digital media refers to content that is available for audience to access anywhere (for example, on mobile phones, tablets etc.) which increases interaction within consumers and interaction between audience and their producers. For example Facebook (owned by Rubert Murdoch), which is meant that audience can communicate with a diverse range of people. However, negative side is that bullying over these social networking has increased and have not much regulation. Murdock owns many media companies as well as varies newspapers all over the world for example News Corp- the sun which is the biggest selling paper in the UK. 

Paragraph 1: On the other hand, traditional media, in particular, newspapers and magazines must conform to its evolution by converging their products in order to function successfully in today’s developing technological society. Print institutions must now not only compete with others of their own industry, but also those of new media, ensuring audiences can access their products in a variety of way as they have the ability to with new media. Large newspaper and magazine corporations with wide mainstream audiences must be aware of the ways in which globalisation is effecting how we consume the media and must positively respond and adapt to these changes to maintain audience’s interest and engagement in the face of the more innovative new media developments they want to explore.

Paragraph 2: Secondly, UGC has also played a major role in empowerment of audiences.This makes audiences no longer passive, in fact they are more actively taking part in the creation of media. The sharing between audiences and producers has allowed UGC to take place which can be done on social networking sites like YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. According to Sherry Turkle social networking sites have isolated us from ‘real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is poor imitation of the real world.' However, it also raises concerns over the regulations by the gatekeepers. There is less censorship over the content produced by citizen journalists which means that the information provided can be invalidated at times. This shows that the audiences are empowered by these developments but to a certain extent

Paragraph 3: Moreover,  in the past , New & digital media has allowed audiences to form protests or even organise extreme violent events such as the London riots 2011, in which the youth were interacting on services such as the BBM, Facebook or Twitter and arranged to take part in it. This could be linked to the empowerment of the audiences as they took control of the situation through the advantage of social networking sites where they were able to gather large number of people in a short amount of time. According to the users and gratification theory( Blumler and Katz)  we could argue that audiences find ways of social interaction, Entertainment and Information where they acquire information from different sources and people. This concludes that audiences are empowered by these developments to a great extent.

Paragraph 4: Furthermore,  with the development of technologies such as social networking sites, blogs, phone applications, 24 hour news channels etc. audiences are can now freely access information ‘on the go’ and in real time with such advancements having a huge impact on the role of the consumer and the active interaction they now play in the media. However, this poses a threatening challenge to the future of print publications. According to The Nielson Company, global consumers spend more than five and a half hours a day on social networking sites, a worrying statistic for traditional institutions as with the rapid speed at which information can be shared on these sites from user to user, and the lack of censorship involved (giving audiences a wider variety of news as there is no restrictions on what stories can be published), there seems less demand for newspapers and magazines as a source of information, raising the question of whether due to the freedom new media gives to audiences, traditional print newspapers and magazines will no longer be needed, used or even wanted by them at all. As a result, it can be argued that traditional media institutions have no choice but to adapt to new and digital media so as to maintain profit and not run the risk of losing their audiences to more exciting and innovative ideas and concepts of consuming the media.

Paragraph 5:  But traditional media is adapting to this challenge successfully. In November 1994, The Daily Telegraph claimed to be the first national online newspaper and was free for users to access, instantly creating an extra source of information that audiences could turn to, fulfilling their desire to engage in new media whilst simultaneously providing them news from a reliable institution that they trust and are loyal to. The success of this adaption can be seen through the websites growing variety of features, including articles from the print edition of the newspaper as well as exclusive web only content and immediate breaking news, picture galleries, videos and more recently the blog known as “My Telegraph,” allowing the audience an increasing sense of control within the media and giving rise to citizen journalism, acknowledging the freedom new media gives audiences. The Telegraph now even offers phone applications, fashion advice and even an online dating service showing just how much effect new media has had on these types of institutions, challenging them to keep on top of its developments by offering more than just simple news converge to absolutely ensure audience interest and satisfaction. 

Conclusion : However, despite the success in adapting to new media that this traditional institution has achieved, questions can be raised over the profit that is actually made from the changes. In this case, all online content from The Daily Telegraph is available for free so this institution must rely on advertisements to fund the website, a seemingly capable way to tackle the problem. However, for some newspaper institutions this could result in a loss, exemplified by Rupert Murdoch who would lose £57 million without charging for online content of The Times and The Sunday Times through the use of a paywall. Furthermore, to view the special “E-Paper” for The Times, a paid subscription must be made whereas for The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Daily Mail, this content is free. This then results in competition between newspaper institutions as well as with institutions such as the BBC whose content is always free, questioning the success of the changes traditional media have made and whether they will ever be able to compete with new and digital media