The first modern print newspaper was published in 1605. Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien was a German-language paper produced by Johann Carolus during era of the Holy Roman Empire. This means print news as we know it in the present day has had over four centuries to evolve and experiment. Over this period of time, nations were born, empires crumbled and most importantly newspapers learned a thing or two about writing, reporting and acquiring a readership in a print format.
By comparison digital news has only truly existed over the past 2.5 decades. That is a minuscule 6.1 percent of the total lifespan of modern print journalism. To illustrate the vast difference in levels of acquired experience between print and digital journalism, it would be fair to say that digital journalism is a toddler while print journalism is an elderly grandparent.
How then is it possible to say, as Professor Chyi does in "Ramen Noodle Theory of Online News is Still Food For Though" that "after 20 years of experimentation, the performance of their online ventures has fallen short of expectations... that most local newspapers' Web edition is still outperformed by the print edition in terms of usage, advertising revenue and willingness to pay?" Saying this is as if to say the the toddler is not as good as the grandparent at algebra. While true, it says nothing of the potential capabilities or worth of the toddler.
Therefore I find it difficult to agree with Professor Chyi's assessment of digital news as an inferior good (a good that decreases in demand as consumer's income increases).
Instead I posit that digital news still has a lot of potential growth. Digital news has not yet overcome its learning curve. While there are clearly problems with the digital news like the lack of tactile experience during the digital news consumption process or a the market's propensity to view free news as low-quality news, strides are being made to improve the overall quality of the digital news which will firmly cement its place as a normal good. For instance in an article in Digiday, author Colin Nagy discusses how media outlets like the New York Times are focusing on how far more digital distribution methods play a part in spreading quality stories online. Additionally according to the Pew Research Center's State of the Media 2015, "39 of the top 50 digital news websites have more traffic to their sites and associated applications coming from mobile devices than from desktop computers," which suggests digital news is becoming a far more tactile experience. Overall I think digital news has time for experimentation- because in the scheme of things it is a very young service.
No comments:
Post a Comment