In the olden days, the only sure-fire way to find out what’s happening in the world would be to pick up a newspaper. Now, the number of ways to do this seems almost limitless, with some alternatives better and faster than a newspaper, and others worse and even dangerous.
Here are some of the ways technology has changed the news media landscape.
1. Independent Outlets
The cost barriers to entry are now much lower for people who want to start their own outlets, since they no longer have to design and produce a print newspapers. As a consequence, mainstream national papers have lost market share to a variety of new independent news outlets.
The result is a much more diverse range of offerings, able to suit a more diverse range of interests and opinions, and a news agenda that is no longer controlled by a handful of national newspaper owners.
2. Local Newspaper Decline
On the other hand, new technology is pushing out forms of information delivery aren’t able to adapt to the new environment. As the circulation of print papers has fallen, so too has the print advertising that many local newspapers depend on to survive.
As a result, many local newspapers have closed, and local information is harder to source, with people having to rely on word of mouth to find out what’s happening in their local area.
3. The Rise of Fake News
We’ve come to grow accustomed to the phrase “fake news” — that’s at least partly because it’s become so abundant on the web.
Video-sharing platform YouTube regularly has to delete thousands of fake videos in order to stop its users from being misled by conspiracy theories or disinformation campaigns. As the number of different outlets has increased online, it’s become much more difficult to distinguish between authoritative news sites and misleading ones.
People tend not to share fake news intentionally — studies have shown that most people only share information they think is accurate. The problem is, standards of accuracy are vastly different between different people.
4. News in the Social Media Age
Alongside the rapid rise of social media has come a variety of new media formats that compete with the traditional newspaper stories or broadcast bulletins. The result is a news landscape that’s much more segmented, with younger people consuming information in a completely different way to older generations.
The effect is that different groups of people — older, younger, male, female — may come across the same news story but have been presented it a different way with an entirely different perspective. Therefore, they find it much more difficult to engage with each other even when discussing the same subject.
5. The Rise of Hyper-Local News
While the closure of your local newspaper might mean you no longer know what’s happening in your local town hall, you now know what your best friend had for breakfast this morning. The advent of social media has caused people to consume a lot more news about their immediate network of social contacts.
People write, photograph and share information about their lives on an almost daily basis. The abundance of information has meant that intrigue about friends’ activities may have crowded out interest in more serious, community-wide affairs.
The End of “The News”
With all these different ways to consume news, there is no longer any single category we collectively call “the news” anymore — the news now means many things to different people. Is this a good thing? You decide.
