The U.S. Newspaper Industry in Transition

[Excerpt] The U.S. newspaper industry is suffering through what could be its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Advertising revenues are plummeting due to the severe economic downturn, while readership habits are changing as consumers turn to the Internet for free news and information. Some major newspaper chains are burdened by heavy debt loads. In the past year, seven major newspaper chains have declared bankruptcy, several big city papers have shut down, and many have laid off reporters and editors, imposed pay reductions, cut the size of the physical newspaper, or turned to Web-only publication. As the problems intensify, there are growing concerns that the rapid decline of the newspaper industry will impact civic and social life. Already there are fewer newspaper reporters covering state capitols and city halls, while the number of states with newspapers covering Congress full-time has dwindled to 23 from the most recent peak of 35 in 1985. As old-style, print newspapers decline, new journalism startups are developing around the country, aided by low entry costs on the Internet. The emerging ventures hold promise but do not have the experience, resources, and reach of shrinking mainstream newspapers. Congress has begun debating whether the financial problems in the newspaper industry pose a public policy issue that warrants federal action. Whether a congressional response to the current turmoil is justified may depend on the current causes of the crisis. If the causes are related to significant technological shifts (the Internet, smart phones and electronic readers) or societal changes that are disruptive to established business models and means of news dissemination, the policy options may be quite limited, especially if new models of reporting (and, equally important, advertising) are beginning to emerge. Governmental policy actions to bolster existing businesses could stall or retard such a shift. In this case, policymakers might stand back and allow the market to realign news gathering and delivery, as it has many times in the past. If, on the other hand, the current crisis is related to the struggle of some major newspapers to survive the current recession, possible policy options to ensure the continuing availability of in-depth local and national news coverage by newspapers might include providing tax breaks, relaxing antitrust policy, tightening copyright law, providing general support for the practice of journalism by increasing funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) or similar public programs, or helping newspapers reorganize as nonprofit organizations. Policymakers may also determine that some set of measures could ease the combination of social and technological transition and the recession-related financial distress of the industry

Multi-platform media: how newspapers are adapting to the digital era

No abstract available

City Magazine Editors and the Evolving Urban Information Environment

The urban information environment in which city magazines operate is changing dramatically, with the decline of local newspapers and the growth of user-generated local content. City magazine editors are re-envisioning their purpose as local information providers. This study provides a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with senior editors at 15 award-winning city magazines. The editors’ responses speak to the changing role of their publications today; the function of new technologies in informing local communities; and the public service that local journalism organizations offer in a constrained economic situation

Consumer behaviour and lifestyle patterns of Hungarian students in view of environmental awareness

The aim of this paper is to describe the consumer behaviour and everyday lifestyle patterns of Hungarian university and college students. The results are gained from an international survey, carried out by the Department of Environmental Economics and Technology at the Corvinus University of Budapest, supported by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. As background literature, characteristics of the consumer society and the development of sustainable consumption as a concept are interpreted in the paper. The empirical analysis aims to describe the most important clusters of students, based on the factors of their consumer behaviour, environmental activism and pro-environmental everyday habits. Our results identify two extreme clusters which most significantly differ from each other: the environmental activists and the indifferent group. However, a third cluster has the most modest consumer behaviour, namely the group which considers product features, energy consumption and the behaviour of producers. They spend the least on consumer goods. The three other clusters show quite mixed lifestyle patterns

Environmental actions to reduce household ecological footprints

This paper presents the ideas of UK householders on how to reduce their Ecological Footprint (EF) after applying a tool called 'EcoCal', which assesses the environmental impacts of households by measuring footprints arising from Transport, Energy, Shopping, House and Garden, Water and Waste. Analysis of the EcoCal results of nearly 700 adult Open University (OU) student households showed that transport and energy impacts are the biggest contributors to the household footprint. Reducing these impacts poses the greatest challenge to achieving a globally sustainable household EF of approximately 0.5 hectares per person. Analysis of the ideas that the OU students were prepared to consider to reduce their household EF revealed a variety of technical and behavioural changes. However, in the context of their own household, the OU students identified several constraints on the implementation of their environmental action plans. Despite such constraints, many of the students instigated changes that helped to make their households more sustainable

Are we relevant to the digital natives?

Bruce Grant-Braham looks at the latest hospitality information technology application

The digital-only media consumer: Key findings from a conversation with all-digital millenials

This study offers insight on the digital-onlys, a sub-population of Millennials who only consume media through digital platforms. Based on informal group conversations with 16 to 34 year-olds, the study provides a snapshot of their daily media consumption and preliminary answers to why they regard digital content as the norm. These findings reveal that some consumers today are not simply abandoning traditional platforms and turning towards digital content, they actually seem to know no other way to consume media but on digital platforms. For them, the biggest consumption change would actually be to watch cable television, listen to FM radio or read a printed newspaper or magazine. Digital-onlys may represent a new kind of consumers that view their media habits as completely normal and organic. Indeed, some are not even aware they belong to this digital group. The participants shared common characteristics: an ability to adapt devices to their needs, an intrinsically digital lifestyle and a habit of bypassing traditional media to access a larger selection of content despite the fact they’re struggling with an overabundance of choice. Our conversations also revealed that digital-onlys are fully aware of the negative impact their media consumption habits can have on content creators, yet they cherish freedom above all else

Technology, Theology, Thinking, and the Church

From the midst of what sometimes seems a brave new world of communication—Web 2.0, blogs, mobile phone service from almost anywhere, video by mobile phone—we should not forget that the Church and humanity have lived through it all before. In fact, our communication revolution follows several others, dating back at least 3500 years, starting with the invention of writing, jumping to the mechanical writing of the printing press, to the electrical communication of the telegraph, and finally to our electronic world. At each stage, humans encoded communication in ever more complex symbolic and technical systems, which make communication more powerful but require more sophisticated interpretation. Both have an interesting and not always predictable impact on theology and Church life. The pattern of our communication and the larger communication world, of which it forms a part, create a communication environment for human living. Like any environment, one can study it, and people do, under the general title media ecology. What can we know about the communication environment? Several principles apply to its study. First, like all environments, its elements interact and affect each individual and process within it. Second, a change in one area will lead to changes in others—enhancing or diminishing them, for example. Third, people often take their environments for granted; not noticing them, they do not notice their influence. Media ecology attempts to call attention to the environment created by communication. To see how communication technology has influenced the Church, we can start with how the People of God have interacted and shared their faith. It shouldn’t surprise us to see changes in one area—communication technology—prompting changes in another—the articulation of faith; similarly, we should not find it surprising that other parts of the environment (including religious practices) trigger changes in communication. Addressing only writing, Walter Ong, S.J., memorably called attention to this pattern of interacting changes with a chapter heading, “writing restructures consciousness.” Here he traced thousands of years of the history of writing systems, using evidence from oral tales, proverbs, and epic poetry, and later novels and printed texts, to show how key elements of our thinking processes and self-consciousness changed once humans had mastered writing

‘Where else is the money? A study of innovation in online business models at newspapers in Britain’s 66 cities’

Much like their counterparts in the United States and elsewhere, British newspaper publishers have seen a sharp decline in revenues from traditional sources—print advertising and copy sales—and many are intensifying efforts to generate new income by expanding their online offerings. A study of the largest circulation newspapers in the 66 cities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland showed that while only a small minority did not have companion websites, many of the publishers who do have an online presence have transferred familiar revenue models. It has also been recognised that income from these sources is not enough to sustain current operations and innovative publishers have diversified into additional broad categories of Web business models. Significantly, this study did not only compare the approaches of various news publishers with each other, but it also considered how active newspaper publishers were in taking advantage of the variety of business models generally being employed on the Web—and which opportunities were ignored