Newspapers and how They Attract the Next Generation - Article Example

What would newspapers have to do to attract the next generation? The success of businesses in modern market is related to different factors. Most commonly, the long term performance of each sector is taken into consideration for estimating the sector’s prospects in the near future. However, economic turbulences and continuous changes in customer preferences can create high uncertainty in regard to a firm’s survival in its industry. Newspapers have to face a similar problem. For most of these firms attracting new customers, especially those belonging in the next generation, has been proved a critical challenge. This paper is based on the following thesis: in order to attract the next generation newspapers should alternate their marketing strategies: instead of focusing on advertising they should rather try to improve their content, addressing the concerns and needs of Gen Y. The above thesis is verified through the findings of the literature reviewed in regard to this issue. At a first level, reference should be made to the current role of newspapers, especially in regard to the expectations of Gen Y. When first appeared, around 1800s newspapers were based on the following principle: they would try to show to the public the truth in regard to events related to the social and political environment (Hackett 197). In other words, initially newspapers aimed to serve the promotion of democracy, as related to equality (Hackett 197). Through the decades, the role of newspapers, as of news media in general, has changed. Currently, emphasis is given to social events and information instead of events related to politics (Hackett 198). In other words, today the fight for democracy and equality, in which newspapers had a critical role, has become of secondary importance. In this context, it is expected that People of Gen Y who like to see their political concerns to be addressed would feel disappointed from newspapers. Despite the above problem, news media has a unique role: the provision of information to people for their social and political environment. And without news media it would be quite difficult for the public to be informed. Herman and Chomsky had developed the Propaganda Model which highlights the close relationship between news media and the political/ social elite (Klaehn 148). The above Model has been rejected by theorists mostly because of the following reason: the Model promotes the idea that ‘news media acts as mechanism of propaganda promoting the interests of elites’ (Klaehn 147). However, the above view cannot be accepted since it would lead to the assumption that in each society ‘there are no intellectual forces but only institutional forces’ (Klaehn 148). As a result, the importance of newspapers in informing the public cannot be doubted nor it can be claimed that newspapers are under the full control of elites; such explanation would eliminate the role and the efforts of intellectual classes for securing democracy. In this context, it could not be supported that people in Gen Y ignore newspapers. Newspapers are, still, sources of information related to public life. And they can still be used by Gen Y for being informed in regard to the social and political life, as also analyzed below. For decades, the role of newspapers, as sources of public information, has been a point of strong conflict. The most important dialogue related to this issue has been developed between ‘Lippmann, a journalist, and Dewey, a philosopher, in the beginning of 1900s’ (Collado 1). Lippmann supported that journalism should primary focus to the provision to the public of pieces of information that have been primarily checked and processed by professionals, i.e. journalists (Collado 1). Lippmann has justified his view by noting that people do not have the experience and the knowledge required for filtering/ processing information and that a professional would be necessary in such task (Collado 1). This means that for Lippmann people should not participate in the process of information and that they should be just the receivers of news. It should be noted that the view of Lippmann, as presented above, is influenced by his belief that democracy, as the term used worldwide, is not feasible (Schugurensky par.1). The view of Lippmann in regard to the full control of news by journalists is known as citizen journalism and is opposed with the participatory journalism, an idea promoted by Dewey (Collado 2). More specifically, Dewey claimed that people should have a critical involvement in the process of information provided by newspapers, otherwise the quality of information could be doubted (Collado 1). Today, a practice between the two views is adopted: through social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, people are asked to state their view in regard to various public issues (Collado 2). Indeed, a study developed in 2011 and which referred to the practices of 60 newspapers in different countries revealed that ‘news is selected/ created by professionals’ (Collado 2) but, then, people can state their view in regard to the news by ‘participating in public discourse’ (Collado 2). Therefore, people, including the Gen Y, do not feel excluded from the whole process. If referring specifically to Gen Y, their perceptions of newspapers would be expected to be positive, at the level that a newspaper is no more simply a piece of paper presenting news created by others but it is rather a dynamic source of information, being able to interact with its readers, through the Internet and social media. Under these terms, the newspapers could increase their ability in attracting people of Gen Y by adopting a similar practice, i.e. by emphasizing to the participation of their readers in the process of news. However, would such strategy be adequate for securing a close relationship between Gen Y and newspapers? This question could be answered after examining the elements and the terms of the above relationship. In general, the dependency of people on newspapers could be explained by referring not only to the content of the newspapers, but also to other factors. For example, in a survey developed in 1945 in New York during a long strike of ‘newspaper deliverymen’ (Garber, par.2) the following facts were revealed: people across the city had missed newspapers not so much because they had been left uninformed but rather because they had been unable to repeat one of their favorite daily habits: to read the newspaper, a habit that was a critical routine of their life (Garber par.3). This means that newspapers cannot be viewed only as a product of journalism, but also as a social phenomenon and as part of the personal life (Garber par.3). As a result, when trying to explain the role and the value of newspapers reference should be made not just to journalism, as related to the validity of newspaper’s content and the terms of process of news, but also to sociology (Garber, par.3). Figure 1 – The front page of the newspaper The News (source: Sniderman 2014) Referring to the question set above, i.e. to whether newspapers can attract people of Gen Y simply by offering to them the chance to participate in the process of news the following answer should be given: for people of Gen Y the access to news is part of daily life but under different terms. For Gen Y the access to news is related to Internet and the social media and not so much to newspapers, as a printed media. The traditional methods used for presenting news through newspapers have been considered as being responsible for that. For example, in most newspapers text is highly fragmented; the letters are small, so that more content can be included and sub-headings are often absent (Sniderman, par.3). The image presented in Figure 1 could be used as an example to explain the particular problem. Based on the issues discussed above, a newspaper could attract more people of Gen Y by changing its structure, making text easier to be read and adopting features/ graphics similar to those used in online forums/ blogs. In terms of its content, a newspaper should incorporate both political and social news, so that it is able to fully cover the needs of Gen Y for news. Focusing on social news could not help a newspaper to secure its presence among people of Gen Y, as probably expected. For example, the newspaper Toronto Star had to face decrease in the number of its sales after referring to a personal problem of the Mayor (Baluja par.1). This fact revealed that in newspapers content is not vital for securing high sales. Many factors, including presentation of news/ structure, offers and coverage of issues in local community are likely to influence the decision of readers to prefer a newspaper. The figures related to the industry’s performance are disappointing, showing the failure of the industry’s managers to face the pressures of digital media: ‘between 2001 and 2011 a reduction of 44% was reported in the newspapers industry’ (Lemann 1). It has been argued that the industry’s shrinkage is related not only to digital media but also to the inability of journalists to address the news as reflections of ‘democracy, society and market’ (Lemann 1). Indeed, the efforts of certain newspapers to increase their customer base by adopting a subscription scheme for their online readers did not have the results expected (Toughill par.4). Under these terms, newspapers could manage to attract more people of Gen Y only if they would adopt the following strategies a) structure should be improved and website should be updated incorporating features compatible to social media and b) content should be enriched, covering all themes that interest this generation, as for instance education, entertainment, work and social life. In any case, the online presence of newspapers should be carefully planned as people in Gen Y seem to highly value Internet as a tool of communication/ information instead of printed media. Works Cited Baluja, Tamara. “Toronto Star claims Rob Ford coverage helped newspaper profits.” The Canadian Journalism Project 5 Mar. 2014 http://j-source.ca/article/toronto-star-claims-rob-ford-coverage-helped-newspaper-profits?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=161e02526f-2014_03_063_4_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cee8abdcde-161e02526f-92501745 Collado, Eduardo. “Lippman-Dewey debate from the social network’ role perspective.” 2011: 1-2. http://www.academia.edu/793145/Lippman-Dewey_Debate_from_the_social_networks_role_perspective Garber, Megan. “Common Knowledge: Communal news in a fragmented world” in Columbia Journalism Review (September 2009). http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/common_knowledge.php?page=all Hackett, Robert. “The news media and civic equality: watch dogs, mad dogs or lap dogs,” pp 197-212 ,in Democratic Equality: What Went Wrong? ed. Broadbent, J. Edward,. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Klaehn, Jeffery. “A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman’s and Chomsky’s ‘Propaganda Model’” in European Journal of Communication 17.2(2002): 147-182 Lemann, Nicholas. “Does journalism have a future?” The Times Literary Supplement 14 Jan. 2008: 1-3 Schugurensky, Daniel. “Selected Moments of the 20th Century.” The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. http://schugurensky.faculty.asu.edu/moments/1922lippdew.html Sniderman, Andrew. “Clever sentences at high frequency about the future of media.” Maclean’s 7 March 2014 http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/alain-de-bottons-attack-on-the-news/ Toughill, Kelly. “The Globe and Mail’s bonus plan could backfire.” The Business of Journalism 9 Jan. 2014. Read More