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Technology is changing news media
 Technology developments are changing how media businesses
operate. They are driving changes in how people access news and how they
interact with media companies and each other. It seems old business models may
no longer apply as cheap hardware, widespread Internet access and powerful
mobile devices transform media consumption, revenues and production. At the
same time, developments in print and broadcast technologies are revolutionising
traditional media.
How can traditional media businesses in developing
democracies compete in a hyper-competitive and uncertain digital world? To
inform MDLF’s future work, we invited a small group of media technology experts
to identify the key trends that are emerging and to outline the questions that
everyone involved in supporting independent media in transitional countries
needs to ask. Here is a selection of their findings.
Pro-am journalism –
mixing professional and amateur content
The one-way nature of traditional media – one media company delivering
a single news product to lots of customers – is changing as technology makes it
possible for audiences not only to react to stories but also to report on them.
The expansion of the Internet and affordable mobile phones with audio, photo
and video functions are fuelling pro-am journalism, a combination of
professional and consumer-produced content.
Encouraging this type of interactivity not only meets the
demands of readers, listeners and viewers to participate in the media process,
it can also improve the quality of reporting. First-hand testimony, photos and
video footage of major news events such as the 7/7 bombings in London and the
Asian tsunami have added value to reporting that professional journalists alone
could not have produced.
Will filters
reinforce fragmentation?
Until recently, people were restricted to a small number of
news outlets to find out what was going on in their communities and in the
world. Now, as the number of information sources explodes, audiences are
fragmenting into smaller and smaller groups and traditional mass media are
being replaced by personalised news providers.
Increasingly, people want access to news that is tailored to
their individual interests, meaning that the traditional model of providing a
single “common interest” newspaper, radio or TV programme is breaking down. In
the digital world, readers, listeners and viewers want to be able to access
what information they want, where they want, when they want.
But will the growth in the use of filters to pre-select the
type of information people receive lead to further fragmentation? And what
impact will this “echo chamber effect”, where people only receive news that
fits in with their existing opinions, have on democracy?
Power used to be
speed of information – now it’s also speed of reaction
Closely related to the emergence of pro-am journalism is the
ability of the public to react instantaneously to events through the media. Channelling
discontent or reaction may increase the power of the press. For example, when Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra claimed that only a handful of people were
taking part in anti-government protests, members of the public sent photographs
of the mass demonstrations from mobile phones to the media. News outlets
published the photos proving that the authorities had been covering up the size
of the protests and, ultimately, contributing to the fall of the government.
 Will aggregation replace
mediation?
There are signs that media companies may have to become
aggregators or filters of information rather than simply content creators. Trends
show that consumers increasingly use information providers which bring together
news from more than one source, rather than turn to a media company that only
provides its own reporting. Companies such as Google and Yahoo!, which “aggregate”
information without creating original content, go one step further by cutting
out all human editing and instead use algorithms to mechanically filter the
news for their users.
As
consumers leave behind the traditional mass media’s packaging of information
and move towards whatever mix of content most precisely matches their individual
needs and interests, media companies will have to face the challenge of
incorporating news from other sources into their own product without
undermining their brand.
Advertising budgets
go online: But how do the media follow the money?
In 2006, advertisers in the UK spent more advertising online
than in newspapers. The migration of advertising online is a trend that looks
set to spread through developed markets to transitional countries.
Some figures from the US give an indication of the
challenges that may lie ahead.
-
None
of the top four online companies are media businesses.
- The
top 50 online companies share 95% of total advertising revenue – any
company that is not part of this elite group faces intense competition for
a share of only 5% of the revenue.
- Competition
for online ads is fierce: 40% of online ads currently go to search and 20%
to classifieds.
If, as seems likely, the migration online becomes a
worldwide trend, media companies in developing democracies will find that their
slice of advertising revenues decreases significantly. News outlets will not
only have to compete with each other for revenues, as they do now, but also
with non-media companies. And as international giants such as Google and Yahoo!
start implementing their “hyper-local” strategies to move into local markets,
before long media businesses in emerging democracies may find themselves
competing for advertising with some of the biggest companies in the world.
 Audience and
advertising fragmentation: Threat or opportunity?
As audiences fragment, media companies will have to generate
revenue from the “long tail”, i.e. seek out smaller amounts of income from many
niches and clusters of consumers. A similar problem is already faced by some
media businesses in developing countries, where large corporations and
multinationals may not advertise in independent news outlets for political
reasons. The long tail trend is likely to be a worldwide phenomenon, though it
may pose special problems in the developing world where many countries do not
have effective mechanisms for collecting small amounts of revenue from many customers.
Diversification of revenue sources will become more
important as advertising income is squeezed. Some publishers already generate
revenue from sources ranging from providing pensions advice to selling
electronic goods. The Times of India, for example, is the largest retailer of
fridges in the country.
Leaps in technology
are also happening in traditional media
At the same time as technology is driving developments in
the digital world, rapid advances in traditional equipment are transforming
production of old media. The quality of new digital presses is as high as any
standard press and they are incredibly flexible – printing anything from
newspapers to flyers – and can even print personalised newspapers. Some can be
operated by only one person and there is no need for extensive training. There
is a view that a digital press may be more cost effective than a traditional
press for a print run of up to 50,000 copies. In two or three years, this could
be as high as 100,000.
Technology developments also allow traditional media
companies to enter the new media world through digitalisation and convergence
of their workflow. Indeed, re-gearing the news production process to
efficiently produce news for delivery over multiple platforms has become an
imperative.
Will emerging markets
leapfrog straight to the newest technology?
Many developing democracies lack old media infrastructure
such as telephone cables. However, advances in new technology are allowing some
countries to leapfrog an entire generation of technology. For example in Yemen,
where the terrestrial telephone system is weak, a women’s NGO sends text message
news alerts to mobile phones, bypassing telephone cables and government
interference with content. In Jordan,
Amannet skipped FM transmission (because the authorities refused to grant it a
licence) and immediately broadcast via the Internet.
Three digital worlds may be emerging: developed, undeveloped
and semi-developed. Leapfrogging technology may happen most in the
“semi-developed” world, where countries such as Malaysia lack some traditional
communications infrastructure but are experiencing a quick take-up of
technology.
Thanks to:
Premesh Chandran, Malaysiakini.com, Malaysia
Vin Crosbie,
Digital Deliverance LLC, USA
Daoud Kuttab, Amannet, Jordan
Richard Landry,
formerly Independent Press Association,
USA
Andrew Lih,
Academic and author, China
Allan Marshall,
iMedia, France
Bertrand Pecquerie,
World Editors Forum, France
Philippe Tarbouriech,
MDLF Adviser, Switzerland
Ari Valjakka, Turun Sanomat, Finland
Zoran Zivkovic,
Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Serbia
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