The Disruption of Newspaper Industry
The innovative shift from physical hand-held newspapers to online news content does not go without criticism. In this report, we discuss how the online distribution of news through online sites, with additional mention to social media, is now a new and common means for how publishers disseminate information to the public, and how these people receive them. We iterate online news sites as one of the many examples of disruptive technology but first and foremost: What is Disruptive Technology?
The global Newspaper Industry has been a well-run industry, efficient and competitive since the industrial revolution. In the past it has been able to adapt itself to meet new challenges. It appears, however, the challenge it is facing today through the introduction of this disruptive technology — the internet; threatens to be terminal.
From Print Media to e-Publishing
Coined in 1995 by Christensen (Moore, 2019), disruptive technologies are innovations that displace incumbent establishments by creating a new market, having walked from the ground up. From the name itself, they are to disrupt the current market in ways that completely change the current giants. In terms of how establishments allow for them to be overthrown by rookie innovations, it all comes down to how most pitched innovations are not being taken seriously by the big heads, and thus see no competition or rivalry between present working innovations over unstable and unclear ideas.
To relate this to the innovation we have chosen, online news sites, we must first dive into its predecessor, newspapers.
According to Onikoyi (2020), the industry has already gone through instances of disruption, first with the invention of the television in the 1950s, then followed by the establishment of the internet. They observed that the newspaper industry's decline has "led to a domino effect thereby resulting in a plummet in circulation, ad revenue and classified advertising" (Onikoyi, 2020). With the newspaper circulation in the US having its lowest decline on weekdays by 8%, on Sundays by 9%, and ad revenue falling to 62%, only 14% Americans have kept subscribed or donated to these news agencies despite most Americans (71%) assuming that "local papers are still financially staying afloat" (Grieco, 2020).
From the disruptor's arrival, newspapers were already going electronic according to Deseret News and St. Petersburg Times (1980). In a test trial in 1980, CompuServe dial-up service, and at the time a national computing service, began working with at least 11 Associated Press member newspapers. The first newspaper was The Columbus Dispatch on July 1, 1980. The other papers included were: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, The Virginian-Pilot / Ledger Star, The Middlesex News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The CompuServe/AP online test trial ended in 1982. The eletronic delivery service functioned by placing a local call which will then be answered by a part of the service's nationwide packet-switching network that then reaches the main database system.
As to when the shift from local papers to digital content started, both as online sites and then in cooperation with social media, it could have roughly commenced in the 80s, when people began going online on chat rooms, or Internet relay chats (IRC). This assumption follows the reasoning that in the same year, computers were becoming more affordable and thus common. It was only natural that the dissemination of information online as well as with social media became more sophisticated through the years. One social media site made in 1997, called Six Degrees, paved the way for microblogging and the social media we know today. And in 1999 as the first blogging sites became popular, it created a way for people "bloggers" or even companies to post about the sentiments, commentaries about social issues, and even for news sites to publish content.
In these findings, we discover the rough origins as well as how the traditional way of distributing information changed because of the internet, and generally onto what bloomed within it. Newspaper agencies had to adapt to the changing market, seeing as sustaining and continuing their publishing of physical papers were not to last long; or became at least the medium in which only a few would still come around for.
Online news sites are a prime example of disruptive technology as it completely changed how the industry approaches its consumers. First and foremost, it takes advantage of the internet’s accessibility towards a global audience, as well as online platforms, which strays far from the traditional door-to-door delivery of information. Second, news providers have repurposed the original use of social media, initially intended for socializing, by adding news sites onto the platform with meaningful and real-time events interacting with regular users of the applications. The more common they are seen on people’s feeds, the more knowledgeable and involved they become. Third, with its rise in relevance and being normalized as an everyday online encounter, it disrupts traditional broadcasting networks and publishing industries from producing and covering news.
Online news sites and news in social media make use of multimedia, allowing users to communicate with one another, and participate in continuous conversations regarding different topics including current events. It brought portability and convenience for consumers: being able to access any article of news from anywhere around the globe, and even find means to translate it, with just a click and/or a swipe, to immediately search and find specific and available information from a simple keyword on a search engine, as well as have the opportunity to interact and engage with the content. Social media for example has connected digital journalism (a combination of multimedia forms) through head-to-head discussions between netizens and the writers themselves. The use of the internet in news distribution has also allowed a smarter and more effective usage of the news agencies’ budget.
Provided that we are living in the information age, we rely on the internet specifically via online social networking platforms to discover and research more about local international events. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report (Donoghue, 2016), 26 countries, half of the total sample use social media to access news every week. This is then supported by the following:
- Increasing users that consume news through social media, portals, and apps point out that traditional media brands continue to have a decreasing presence.
- Traditional Media is still popular to the older demographic but the usage is declining. Younger generations and other users prefer to set a particular time in their liking to view content such as news.
- The growing usage of smartphones reached half of Reuter Institutes’ sample. Computer usage is dwindling while tablet usage is stable.
To note, news coverage will still be distributed through physical and televised means, and despite its disruptive impact as new markets and approaches have occurred because of it, there will still be consumers who would still rely on the traditional, seeing as there is still a gap in technological literacy, usability, and accessibility. As society progresses at an exponential rate and new inventions arise, human beings are still so far from catching up to completely eradicate the old. Until society solves the digital divide, the issues within less privileged areas, and the worries of those unable to adapt or view things from an LED screen, there will still be much to change before fully committing to the online distribution of news alone. That is of course unless telecommunications companies: successfully expand and improve their coverage that even the most remote areas are provided with adequate internet connection and communication services; heed to the concerns of the older generations and of people with disabilities; and innovate and create platforms where information is accessible and safe for its consumers of all categories.
In conclusion, as newspapers dwindle in popularity and succeeding generations breed off of online platforms and the internet, the industry must follow suit towards a new method in providing and distributing information to the public, which has even remarkably improved on a global scale. Online news sites and social media are merely a few of the emerging innovations that will pioneer competitive ideas which will further disrupt existing markets, successfully building and altering the progress of technical development that appeals to the changing society and times. As disruptive as it is an innovation, online news sites and social media have become increasingly more relevant and useful to the public than it did during the early gradual shift of news providers to digital media .
REFERENCES:
Deseret News. (1980, June 27-28). 11 newspapers join electronics trial. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fDQpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M4MDAAAAIBAJ&dq=compuserve&pg=7122%2C7819048
Donoghue, K. L. (2016). Social Media News as Disruptive Technology. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://ir.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/1944/2047/1/43.pdf
Grieco, E. (2020, May 30). Fast facts about the newspaper industry’s financial struggles as McClatchy files for bankruptcy. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/14/fast-facts-about-the-newspaper-industrys-financial-struggles/
Hendricks, D. (2019, November 25). Complete History of Social Media: Then And Now. Small Business Trends. https://smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/the-complete-history-of-social-media-infographic.html#:~:text=The%20first%20recognizable%20social%20media,sensation%20that's%20still%20popular%20today.
Moore, R. (2019, June 04). 11 Disruptive Innovation Examples (And Why Uber and Tesla Don’t Make the Cut). Openview. https://openviewpartners.com/blog/11-disruptive-innovation-examples-and-why-uber-and-tesla-dont-make-the-cut/?fbclid=IwAR187yirV4DLSMxtHqQaVIV6b0ZVErqAr5NVgt2-KSpERiNGyijOc_un3Lw#.X8oSCmgzbIX
National Research Council. (2010). 3 The Nature of Disruptive Technologies. In Persistent Forecasting of Disruptive Technologies. The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12557.
Onikoyi, O. (2020, February 6). Disruptive innovation in the newspaper industry. Medium. https://olaonikoyi.medium.com/disruptive-innovation-in-the-newspaper-industry-9f1ef24a9740
St. Petersburg Times. (1980, February 26). Electronic delivery: the newspaper of the future. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GRsmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dloDAAAAIBAJ&dq=newspapers&pg=6628%2C2657830
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