Future of newspaper - Essay Example

Evolution in the Newspaper Industry from 1950 to Analysis of Economic, Social and Technological Factors The print media has gone through a significant change in the past sixty years. In the 1950s, all nations relied heavily on newspapers and radio broadcasts for news and information about recent activities in communities. Then came the television and other forms of broadcasting which formed the foundations of mass communication. The 1990s came in with a lot of new media outlets which included electronic and other automated forms of communication.

Computers, internet, mobile phones and other devices radically affected newspapers in terms of numbers printed and the readership base. Information technology changed the era of mass communication to an era of mass communicators where more people could set up media outlets (Steinberg 1). This affected newspapers adversely. Mary Vipond identifies that newspapers had a near monopoly on advertising revenues in the Canada in the 1950s (60). However, in 1960, newspapers lost their share of adverts to television and this fell to 30.

9% at the end of the decade. It declined further to 27% between 1990 and 1995 and has continued to fall since then (Vipond 60). In the United States though, the American Newspapers Publishers Association announced a steady increase in advertising revenues of $5,704 million in 1970 to $25,170 million in 1985 (Fink 6). After 1990 though, the revenues began to decline since there was the introduction of new media outlets like the Internet and computers. Since the running of a newspaper company is strongly based on revenues from advertising, most newspapers declined.

Technologically, the proliferation of computers and consumer electronic products made a major difference. This is because news is a commodity that is based on timeliness. As such, stronger and faster methods of presenting news always cause slower methods to disappear. The coming of the Internet and mobile phones have caused a lot of traditional newspapers to open online outlets. More significantly, new broadcasters have set up their own media outlets to disseminate information. This has led to so much competition.

Newspapers have responded to these changes by setting up Internet outlets through which they present their news and try to advertise. As such, most newspapers now run both a digital and the traditional paper prints. As more and more people continue to use the Internet, it is predicted that traditional newspapers are going to focus more on the Internet. This is because there is a continuous increase in the number of people who spend their time on the Internet. As such, more newspapers are likely to evolve to present their information via the Internet instead of traditional prints.

Also, the power of social networking sites like facebook and twitter means that more newspapers are going to continue merging their services with these social networking sites. In conclusion, economic factors, the division of the readership base and the proliferation of news outlets and systems has led to a decline in traditional newspaper prints and sales. The social preference for quicker sources of information has supported the decline. Traditional newspapers now run a blend of traditional prints and other electronic print systems and structures to survive the competition.

Works CitedFink Conrad. Strategic Newspaper Management Southern Illinois University Press. Print. 1988. Print.Steinberg Sheila. An Introduction to Communication Studies Cape Town: Juta and Co Ltd. 2007. Print.Vipond Mary. Mass Media in Canada Ontario: James Lorimer & Company. 2000. Print.