There has been a shift. It is still happening but the shift is taking place from traditional news exchange towards social media. Although it may feel comforting sitting down reading a newspaper, there is less immediate gratification. Social media can bring instantaneous results for almost every news question.
Blogs, microblogs (like Twitter), social networks, streaming video, discussion forums – they all bring news. The quality and accuracy may, of course, vary. But where else can you find such a rich source of up-to-the-minute news? Even TV cannot bring this is the same way.
And the multiplicity of available platforms is interesting. A recent survey showed that 92% in the US use more than one platform for their news updates.
What’s the importance of all this? It is an awesome change ripe for opportunity.
No longer are we “fed” news (will the word “newsfeed” become obsolete?). We “access” news. We can personalize the exact news we wish to be informed about. And, furthermore, we can dictate the extent and depth of that access.
The biggest change is that we can now react, interact and personalize with our data. We can respond, question, ask for more information and challenge opinions like never before.
Long live change. Long live the News.
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This is a nice summary of the way the news industry is shifting. I only ever buy a newspaper on a Saturday now – because as you say it’s comforting. I get ALL of the rest of my news online.
Newspapers have found themselves in trouble because of this, and hundreds of local papers have gone out of business. They really need to change their model in order to survive.
There was some livelty debate about the future of Journalism at an SEO event in Brighton – we’ve published a summary on our website at http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/death-future-journalism/
Colin Welch
Silicon Beach Training
Yes, I get the newspapers just to do the crosswords with my wife (oh, and look at sport….)