Communication
61 The Digitalization of News Media
Rowan Howell
INTRODUCTION
For centuries, news has given the public accessibility to current events, public announcements, important information, and even hot gossip about our favorite celebrities. News allows us to stay informed and up to date with what is going on around us. Before the internet, news was much slower and oftentimes covered more local subjects. Due to the digitalization of news, we now have access to everything on a global scale. With the development of news technology, like many other technological advancements, we have been granted access to an unfathomable amount of information, allowing us to become much more politically, socially, and economically aware of the world around us. While this can be very informative, it is not without its downsides. Because of the limitless amount of information, opinions, and general content that now accompanies today’s news it can be very easy to fall for misleading information. It can also be extremely overwhelming to constantly read and hear about current events when the majority of modern news covers negative, scary, graphic, or depressing content.
TRADITIONAL NEWS
Before the development of the Internet, people got their news from print media, radio, and television sources. This meant that whatever was available was what you were able to consume that day. Information was limited to whatever people had access to as the information providers decided what would go out and what wouldn’t. This allowed for a small number of media outlets to do the reporting and providing of information because the only way to reach the people was through these traditional media outlets. Unlike today, posting information was a difficult and time consuming process. If you did not have any credit in the industry, it was almost impossible for your paper or magazine to gain popularity, for you to broadcast on a radio station, or for you to occupy a tv channel. Because of these restrictions, the pool of news reporting was very limited, causing a select few to profit. While this may have increased the risk for biased sources and slower news reporting, it established a boundary between the consumer and the amount of information available to them.
Post-internet news media
For traditional newspapers, the internet was a little less productive. In a recent study, it was shown that 86% of Americans get their news and current information from digital sources (Shearer, 2021). But it isn’t just print media that is dying out. Additionally, the consumption of news reporting on television networks and cable channels are also seeing a shift with new technological advancements. In the same 2020 study, it was found that about 67% of adults ages 30-49 and 71% of those 18-29 got most of their news from a digital device (Shearer, 2021). The digitalization of media has had a clear impact on how today’s society gets their news.
This shift away from print media has caused many newspapers such