In 2008, approximately of 120 newspaper companies in US shut down while others are reducing their publication (e.g 3 days a week) due to the decline in readership and numbers of readers who subscribe to their newspapers (Chen 2009).
Source: CNN.com web-page
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Generally, the newspaper industry is still holding the old concept in publishing their news by copying and pasting their print content. In contrast, online news uses publishing platform to create text, image, audio and video to attract readers attention while meeting their expectation (Joel 2010). Thus, readers are beginning to shift to non-newspaper sources of online news.
The advantages of Online News.
- Free News Content
- Bigger online companies (e.g. Yahoo, MSN and Google) is providing free news content for readers. Hence, there are option for readers to either pay for newspaper news or get it free from online news.
- Research shows that 77% people will not pay for either print newspaper or online newspaper when they can get it for free on certain online page (Whitney 2010).
- Online free news also provide free interactive tools such as polls and online voting.
- Below is the research shows the percentages of readers who read online:
Source: pewresearch.org
- Immediacy of Information
- Online news is a best way to access various information and keep updated with the latest up-to-minutes news (William 2010).
- Internet provide the greatest immediacy of information, with simple cue words and a click, all information that is needed will be on screen.
- Below is the example from Google News Online:
Source: Google News page
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- Multimodal text (Walsh 2006)
- Online news provide multimodal text where it combine various form of option for readers to choose either to read, listen or watch.
- It combine both written and spoken form whereby it not only inform readers, it also engage to the readers with video.
- Besides, it also allow readers to navigate to various sites.
- Below are the examples from Yahoo and MSN which offer various form of news:
Source: Yahoo Video News
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Source: MSN News page
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Apparently, internet has conquered the media world. All information that is published in the newspapers are made available in the internet and it offers even more for FREE. Hence, there is no doubt that old form of media especially newspaper faced an extreme huge challenged from the new media.
In order to survive in this technology world, newspaper companies would have to figure out something new, catches reader's attention and newsworthy for readers to buy or subscribe to their newspaper.
Referencing:
Chen, S 2009, "Newspaper fold as Reader defect and economy sours", viewed 9th June 2010
<http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/03/19/newspaper.decline.layoff/index.html>
Dennen, S 2009, "As Print Newspaper Decline, How Does Digital Fill the Void?", viewed 10th June 2010
< http://blog.comscore.com/2009/07/print_newspapers_decline.html>
Drowak, J C 2010, "How Newspaper Business Killed Itself", viewed 9th June 2010
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360209,00.asp24>
Joel, M 2010, " Buying a newspaper and free news", viewed 10th June 2010
<http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/buying-a-newspaper-and-free-news/>
Walsh, M 2006, "The 'textual shift' : Examining the reading process with print, visual and multi-modal texts", Australia Journal of Language and Literacy," Vol. 29(1), pp 24-37
William, C 2010,"Online News and Advantages", viewed 10th June 2010
<http://www.ideamarketers.com/?Online_News_and_Advantages_&articleid=455428>
Whitney, L 2010,"Poll: Most won't pay to read newspapers online", viewed 10th June 2010
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10433893-93.html>
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