Week 3: Journalism - Is it in crisis or is it exploding?

This post is part of my 'Journalism, PR & The Media' theory module online portfolio 

New media and technological advances cause the media industry to fear for the quality of journalism and the professional survival of the journalist. But, the set reading this week looks at this issue differently. Authors of 'The Future of Journalism: Networked Journalism" look at how this idea of new media does not represent a crisis in journalism, but in fact an explosion of it, suggesting that new media causes the profession to be more alive than ever.

Articles, stories and information is now much more accessible to the public. Thanks to technology the pubic now have many more stories to read, watch and absorb and on many different platforms, which are often free of charge e.g. twitter and blogs. According to the reading, good journalists in todays world are those who can tell fact-based stories through text, audio and visuals, stories which people can relate to and share.

The exchange between journalists and readers has changed, instead of a 'lecture' it is now a 'conversation' (Bradshaw 2011) Bradshaw also comments that there has been a massive power shift in terms of distribution, predominantly readers distribute a journalists work by sharing stories with friends or personal news feeds. Thus meaning, a journalists work is being read by a wider range of people, it can reach larger audiences and provoke more conversation all due to new media.

However, the industry believes Journalism is in crisis because people can get the information they want from multiple sources meaning they opt less frequently for newspapers and network television and more often turn to online news, radio and their smart phones. The willingness to pay for information has declined as it is so accessible for free, and now advertising is following readers to the Internet (Gluck & Roca, 2008) meaning that traditional newspapers and broadcast outlets are missing out on advertising payments.

Taking out this aspect of profitability, a journalists aim is to produce reliable information to the public. John Palvik believes this new media world will compel journalists to be even more attentive to detail and accuracy as feedback can be swift, hard-hitting and self-correcting. Palvik views technological change as an opportunity to slow if not stop the media's long decline in credibility and audience.

I find this area of study extremely interesting as I myself use the internet and free online recourses to access news over buying the newspaper, and I actively use blogging and twitter to join in conversations. If I was to look into this topic further I would use an interview/ethnography as my methodology. I would speak to current journalists and ask about their own experiences with new media and the if their practices have changed due to technology. I would also read further into the topic using academic texts. 

Bibliography:

1) Bregtje van der Haak, Michael Parks, Manuel Castells (2012), The Future of Journalism: Networked Journalism

2) Pavlik, J. (2001) Journalism and New Media. United States: New York : Columbia University Press, c2001.

3) Long, P. Wall, T. (2012), Media Studies, Texts, Production, Context (2nd Edition), New York, Routledge