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Hong Kong Economic Herald: Will newspapers die out?

Newsline: 0311-89622370 Source: Date: September 07, 2006 09:10

Philip Mayer, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina, said as early as last year in his book, "The Disappearing Newspaper: Saving Journalists in the Information Age," that the newspaper would be the only one to survive. Mayer as early as last year in his book - "disappearing newspapers: saving journalists in the information age," proposed: 2044, the traditional newspaper media is about to go extinct. As a respected professional who has studied the newspaper industry for more than 30 years, it was powerful to suggest, with precise numbers, that the Internet "seems to be easily beating the lazy old newspaper.

But the past year has seen a further concentration of resources in online media, both in terms of media audiences and advertising revenues. This has led to the resurgence of the "newspaper demise theory" after a year. The traditional paper media need to be cautious of this development trend, and develop a reasonable countermeasures.

Traditional paper media and the modern Internet media, which is better or worse, from the simple fact that it is difficult to get a definitive answer, the only way to peel off the cocoon, in-depth analysis, in order to explore the truth behind it.

Internet vs. traditional newspaper content and technology

In essence, the Internet and newspapers, but the medium of dissemination of news. Leaving aside the content of the news, the medium readers choose depends on their cost-benefit ratio. If the Internet is technically superior to newspapers, providing readers with greater convenience, greater interactivity and lower costs, it is only a matter of time before it replaces traditional paper media. Most of the current arguments in favor of the Internet replacing traditional newspapers stem from this argument, including even Philip K. Mayer. Even Philip Meier. Indeed, the available data supports this view, with newspaper circulation in long-term decline, with more than 50% of modern young people aged 15-24 rarely reading newspapers, and even adult newspaper reading on a downward trend.

But it is still undeniable that the traditional newspaper media still occupy a considerable advantage in content, as a "content is king" industry, the key to the problem is who mastered the content resource advantage, who will grasp the initiative. The reason why the traditional newspaper industry is still standing, its fundamental still lies in the content advantage, the emerging Internet media, although technologically leading a chip, but in the content is still a little less than that, which is why the Internet media, although the development of the extremely rapid, but still can not catch up with the essence of the newspaper reason in the short term.

Of course, movement is the eternal law of the world. Advantages and disadvantages of the same in the constant change, the Internet and traditional newspapers a dominant technical advantage, a dominant content advantage, which does not guarantee that the future pattern is the same. The Internet can be upgraded in terms of content, relying on the network's good interactivity and convenience, the authenticity of the content and readability to a new height. Simple example, most of the current network media with message function, a single news pursuit of timely and accurate, but the majority of netizens' message comments not only provide timely information interaction, but also make different points of view can be released at the same time, readers can read different views and comments, including professional reviews and public opinion, and identify and compare to form their own views. The traditional newspaper media only provides a single news media, the content is thin and pale, and even in many cases, the commentaries have the suspicion of raping the public opinion, and at the same time, monopolize the right to publish the views, so that the ordinary readers are difficult to express their feelings.

Under these circumstances, it would be better if newspapers could remain objective and fair, otherwise the consequences would be self-evident. News Corporation (News Corp.) Chairman Rupert Murdoch (Rupert Murdoch). News Corp. (News Corp.) Chairman Rupert Murdoch (Rupert Murdoch) publicly declared: outside of New York, all are monopoly newspapers. Some of them are good, but they tend to be over-written, boring, elitist, and don't reflect the general mood of the public. I think their circulation will decline even more than it is at present.

Cost vs. revenue dominates media trends

The news media, as an industrial industry, really determines whether it survives or not also on the cost:benefit ratio. Whether it's the Internet or a newspaper, the main determinants of cost: revenue are circulation and advertising revenue. Among them, advertising revenue depends mainly on the circulation, the circulation is small, the audience is limited, the audience is limited to advertising revenue is difficult to enhance; and determine the size of the circulation is mainly the audience group to obtain some kind of media cost: the ratio of revenue.

Assuming comparable content, the Internet can rely on its technological advantages and unique distribution methods to easily win in the competition with traditional newspapers. Simply put, first of all, the network media has a real-time time and zero cost, any audience, as long as they have the conditions of access to the Internet, including a computer and Internet access ports, you can go online to browse the news, not subject to any time and money constraints, while the traditional newspapers need to be regularly subscribed to buy; secondly, the network media has a spatial infinity, as long as the conditions of access to the Internet as described in the previous paragraph, no matter in any Secondly, online media is spatially unlimited, as long as you have the aforementioned access to the Internet, you can get news tips from all over the world, regardless of your location. This is unmatched by traditional newspapers, which need to be purchased at regular intervals, while the phenomenon of local newspapers monopolizing readers' resources is serious, and it is difficult for readers to get a comprehensive understanding of the facts just by reading local newspapers. Although the above two points may be limited by the popularity of the network from the current point of view, but from a long-term point of view, the network will sooner or later become an indispensable part of the life of ordinary people, just like the TV into the thousands of households, so the popularity of the problem is not the root of the problem.

Finally, the fundamental reason why the Internet may replace traditional media (including newspapers, TV, etc.) is its good expandability and interactivity. Expandability and interactivity is mainly manifested in the network media to adapt to audience needs and tastes change in the performance of the extremely flexible, it is expected that the future of the network media will break through the reporter to collect news-based model, but through the establishment of a huge network structure and search engine, filtering, sorting, organizing the world's news and information, each network audience at the same time is also a provider of information, including a wealth of BLOG, cell phone The network audience is also a provider of information, including rich BLOG, mobile phone images, film and television clips, and even in-depth investigation reports; network audience can also search for their own needs through the search engine information, rather than like the current newspaper media as a passive mechanical acceptance of information.

The cost:benefit ratio of this audience adopting online media will be much better than that of traditional newspapers. If the traditional newspaper media industry does not take more measures to change, its demise is only a matter of time.

Newspaper and network competition + cooperation

In the face of the challenge of the emerging network forces, China's traditional media in a short period of time experienced a huge change in attitude, from the initial ignorance to a sudden awakening, found that the original recipients of the content has been morphed into its own gravedigger. So they decided to rise up and attack, with the cost of news gathering and editing as the reason for the collective boycott of the network media, but after the boycott, but found themselves also a victim, whether in the reprint rate or audience expansion, the traditional newspaper has long been y dependent on the network media. The only way to do this is to strengthen the cooperation between the two organizations.

The key to the problem has become how to cooperate in competition, and how to compete in cooperation. Whether it is a traditional newspaper or network is only the medium of news dissemination, as a news publisher, should not be limited to the type of media, but should be the pursuit of timely and accurate news, objective and fair nature. Traditional newspapers and the network will show a trend of continuous integration, even in foreign countries is also the same, Murdoch spent 1.5 billion dollars to buy the fast-growing network of neighborhoods www.myspace.com和游戏内容网站IGN Entertainment, so that the company jumped to the top three in the nation's web page views.

Ultimately it doesn't matter to the average news audience whether newspapers merge with the Web or the Web merges with newspapers. All society wants is more convenience and efficiency, and whoever does that will undoubtedly be the winner in the end.

Source: Hong Kong Economic Herald Author: Luk Chi-ming