Presently, the industry is facing for the survival problem and many criticizers guess its complete death in future. Though many experts from the newspaper industry, hope to reinforce that there is no reason to fear about the death of the Indian newspaper industry and that newspapers must remain optimistic

Ahiwale, Swati

English

International Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJMS)

   INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY 
STUDIES 
                 Vol. 2, Issue 3, March, 2016          ISSN(Online): 2454-8499        Impact Factor: 0.679 
1st March, 2016  Page 1 
   Website: www.irjms.in  Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com 
 
Future of the Newspaper in and Digital Age of Communication 
 
Prof. Swati Ahiwale 
Modern College of Arts Commerce and Science, Shivajinagar Pune 04 
           
Abstract 
 Presently, the industry is facing for the survival problem and many criticizers guess its 
complete death in future. Though many experts from the newspaper industry, hope to 
reinforce that there is no reason to fear about the death of the Indian newspaper industry 
and that newspapers must remain optimistic. 
 
1. Introduction 
 
The Indian newspaper industry is now experiencing a much-need transformation, and worried 
by a severe recession, decreasing advertising revenues, major changes in consumer behavior 
and emerging new  technologies. As a result, we have seen some newspaper organizations 
declare economic failure, while the others are still trying with new survival formulas. 
 
2. History of the Newspaper Industry 
 
The newspaper industry has been around for over four centuries.  Although the first official 
newspaper was published in 1605 in Strasburg, it was only during the Industrial Revolution, in 
the early 19th century, when the steam printing press and telegraph developed. This allowed 
low-cost papers to be sold by street vendors to a larger public. In 1890 and 1920, the industry 
grew and newspapers of being society’s primary source of information. This was identified as 
the ‘Golden Age’ for print media. But, the great depression upset and in the 1930s newspapers 
were badly hurt, because of the emerging broadcast radio. Television was the other technology 
that disturbed the newspaper business. It was a other powerful medium to distribute information 
which overtook the newspaper industry in 1960s. It was the cheapest alternative for the people 
to collect news. 
 
Though, the early 1990s was the most recent time that newspapers enjoyed profit margins of 
20% to 25%. But in 1995, the Internet was introduced to the people. The people were able to 
access information and get instant updates endangered the purpose of a newspaper, and  the 
Internet has became a growing source of competition for the newspaper publishers.  
 
3.   Current Environment 
 
a. Impact of the Internet 
 
The Internet was first introduced  to commercial interests in 1988, but it took a hardly few 
years for the network to gain public appreciation and  only in the late 1990’s the it began to 
take shape as the ‘World Wide Web’. And its impact  had on newspapers was two fold. 
   INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY 
STUDIES 
                 Vol. 2, Issue 3, March, 2016          ISSN(Online): 2454-8499        Impact Factor: 0.679 
1st March, 2016  Page 2 
   Website: www.irjms.in  Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com 
Suddenly, the Internet has increased competition for the newspaper . Indirectly, it 
has influenced advertising trends and consumer behavior. Consequently, newspapers have 
been forced to add with the Web and now around 80% of newspaper publishers have 
integrated web.1 
 
i)  Increasing Competition 
The Internet has crossed all geographical boundaries, it has extensive global range. With zero 
marginal cost  it is associated with digital news content. As a result, it has become mandatory 
for local newspapers to compete with national newspapers. Newspapers have therefore realize 
that they are no longer the only reliable source of news available, in fact, their major 
competition from national television particularly news network sites.1 
 
ii)  Revising News Distribution 
The Internet allows readers to get news in real- time and stay constantly updated. News websites 
frequently update their headlines with important news, consumers can  receive news alerts from 
their e-mail as well as  there are websites like twitter that are dedicated to status updates from all 
their users. 
 
iii)  Social News Distribution 
In addition to  the Internet via e-mail and social media activity has led to news and distributed 
socially. A recent study8 found that 71% of Internet users receive news through email forwards  
on social networking sites .  
 
iv)  News Aggregators 
The Internet has also caused in the growth of news aggregators, websites they  collect contents 
from multiple sources.2  They automatically scan the web for similar articles and group them 
together, providing headlines in brief. 
 
b.   Impact on Consumer Behavior 
Internet is now the third most popular news source and in 2008 there was a 19% increase in the 
total number of people accessing online news regularly according to a recent study by Pew 
Research.3    
 
c. Impact of Advertising Trends 
While the Internet has harshly threatened the traditional ways of news consumption, it has also 
improved the business for an advertiser. With the help of Internet, advertisers are able to reach 
their target audience more  efficiently. Marketers can correctly measure results and display 
their ad spends very closely.  
 
d. The Impact of Disruptive Technologies 
With the growth of the Internet, digital stands have been developed to keep up with 
transforming customers demands. These technologies disrupt the newspaper business 
because they make online news more reachable for readers. These devices are computer, 
mobile, tablet, and e-reader. 4 
 
   INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY 
STUDIES 
                 Vol. 2, Issue 3, March, 2016          ISSN(Online): 2454-8499        Impact Factor: 0.679 
1st March, 2016  Page 3 
   Website: www.irjms.in  Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com 
4.   Other Devices Available 
When computer is invented, newspaper publishers started  to create digital libraries. 
When the Internet was launched, such digital libraries were published online and step by step 
newspapers used computers to generate an online version for their daily print versions. Now 
computers more advanced because of advancements in technology , affordable as well as 
portable with the invention of the laptop. Now more people own computers and most of them 
have access to the Internet.  
In order to understand the print model is how much threatened by  the computer , it is 
very essential  to evaluate the device with respect to reading  the digital news. 
 
Benefits of a computer: 
 
(i) It has numerous functions and is essential for many uses in today’s world;  
(ii)  It enables the process of saving as well as  sharing information;  
(iii) Large screen  of the computer which allows three-fourths of a news page to be visible;  
(iv) It helps rich media content, creating an inspiring experience for newsreaders. 
 
Drawbacks of a computer: 
 
(i) Most of the laptops still cannot be  rolled to fit into a handbag;  
(ii) It lacks the aesthetic feel of reading and also flipping the pages of a newspaper;  
(iii) It is limited to the work-desk , that is wherever Internet access is available;  
(iv) It gives  a strain on the eyes , because screens do not enable prolonged readings. 
 
ii) The Cellular Phone 
 
The cellular phone has now converted to a smart phone which  is a hand-held device that allows 
users to play games, receive emails, , download applications and also access the Internet. Now 
maximum people have their own cellular phones and most of them have access to the Internet. 
More important thing is that they gets some news from their cellular phone. In addition to this 
projections show that WiFi enabled cellular phones is going to  increase day by day. In this way 
it has changed the way newsreaders  to receive their news and consume it.  
 
iv)   Tablet 
 
It is a combination of an e-reader and a laptop. It permits users to browse the Internet, subscribe 
to e-books and e-newspapers, and download applications.  
 
Benefits of tablet: 
 
(i) It is a handy/portable device;  
(ii) The interface looks like rich media content;  
(iii) The screen  of this tablet is large and supports touch-screen features;  
(iv) This tablet  uses the e-ink display technology;  
   INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY 
STUDIES 
                 Vol. 2, Issue 3, March, 2016          ISSN(Online): 2454-8499        Impact Factor: 0.679 
1st March, 2016  Page 4 
   Website: www.irjms.in  Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com 
(v) It has many features including music player, an e-book reader, internet 
browser, and newspaper applications 
.  
Drawbacks of  tablet: 
 
(i)  It is expensive and requires an additional subscription to AT&T for Internet access;  
(ii)  It does not replace the laptop or cellular phone, becoming an additional luxury;  
(iii) It is relatively large in size and heavy in weight when compared to an eReader an 
cellular phone. 
 
5. Print media versus Electronic media 
 
From the above discussion it can be said that the existing newspaper business model needs 
change. Whether this means (i) merely altering their present model to include print and digital 
or (ii) a complete alteration of going purely digital. 
 
I. Standing of the print model 
 
Benefits 
 
1. For consumers reading news from a broadsheet is good experience. 
2.  For the readers, it has become a habitual behavior. 
3. Like other technologies, the it does not require access of Internet and does not need to 
be charged. It is  also portable and lightweight. 
4. For advertisers, the newspaper continues to be one of the few mass mediums that are 
not fragmented. So advertisers are likely to continue spending on the print model 
especially the national newspapers. 
5. Advertising revenue  is the major benefit for publishers because of high  circulation 
numbers. 
 
Drawbacks 
 
1. When publishers wants to cut down costs by reducing their work force, and other 
expendture still accounts for approximately 50% of total costs. 
2. Newspapers are unable to provide updates in real time. 
3. Circulation  of newspapers has faced a drastic decline, relatively consistent across all 
age groups. 
4. As a portal for news sharing, newspapers are uniform. Consumers are neither able to 
identify the news they read, nor select what is on the front page. 
5. Newspapers are  not interactive. This is one-way communication. 
 
 
 
 
 
   INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY 
STUDIES 
                 Vol. 2, Issue 3, March, 2016          ISSN(Online): 2454-8499        Impact Factor: 0.679 
1st March, 2016  Page 5 
   Website: www.irjms.in  Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com 
II. Standing of a digital model 
 
Benefits 
 
1. Most of the readers use digital news. The Internet has become the most popular source of 
news. 
2.  Online news is continually being updated, alerting users with any breaking news. Hand-
held devices permit users to receive these updates instantly.  
3. For consumers, accessing news digitally gives them access to an plenty of news to select 
from. 
4. For consumers, digital news is customizable. Users can select the news they want. 
5. For consumers, digital news also offers an interactive experience.  
6. For the publisher, digital news eliminates geographical boundaries and thus opens up all 
news websites. 
7. For publishers, gathering news is only 35% of their costs and providing digital news is at a 
zero marginal cost. 
8. For advertisers, online advertising rates are very low in comparison to print. 
9. Digital news is eco-friendly, as it does not require printing. 
 
Drawbacks 
 
1. Since online newsreaders are comfortable with free news, publishers need to find a 
way to charge them. This is evidencing to be a struggle. 
2. Many consumers are not comfortable in making online payments because of safety 
reasons. 
3. Publishers aim to improve the traffic to their respective websites, in order to increase 
ad revenues. This has compromised the excellence of content. 
4. For consumers, digital news lacks the tangible feel of an old-style broadsheet. 
5. Real-time updates are constant, but they can also result in important news feeds to 
go unnoticed as they are forced out of the limelight with the latest update. 
6. With the sufficient available information, particularly through user-generated blogs, 
difference between real news and a rumor is often camouflaged. This has also 
impacted the credibility of online media amongst newsreaders. 
7. Technologies have a learning curve, and this is makes a significant different for the 
reliable print consumers who are of an older age group. Additionally, devices like an 
e-reader and iPad are relatively expensive and they also depend on Internet access to 
receive the news updates. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY 
STUDIES 
                 Vol. 2, Issue 3, March, 2016          ISSN(Online): 2454-8499        Impact Factor: 0.679 
1st March, 2016  Page 6 
   Website: www.irjms.in  Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com 
 
6. Conclusion 
 
After examining both the print and digital models of news, we can conclude that technology 
is the key driving force for the changing patterns of news consumption. Whereas the print 
model have certain advantages, no doubt its disadvantages cannot be rectified. On the other 
hand, digital news is highly valued by newsreaders because it link up with their ever-
changing demand for news. In addition to this, digital news is still in its initial stages and 
therefore many of its drawbacks are only reflective of the technologies. In fact, the industry 
is now witnessing the formation of more updated devices, besides it is just a matter of time 
for a new device to be announced which not only meets consumer demands but also includes 
the advantages of the print model. 
However, publishers cannot ignore the challenge of revenue making through digital news 
content. It is essential for them to develop a subscription model that can be adopted by all 
group  in the industry before they can make a fully informed decision of transforming their 
business into a purely digital model or not. 
 
 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Project for Excellence in Journalism and Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute. (Apr 
23, 2009) News Investment: 
://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_newspapers_newsinvestment.php?cat=4&m
edia=4. 
 Heald, Emma. (Mar 11, 2009). Google News and Newspaper 
Publishers: Allies or Enemies: 
http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2009/03/google_news_and
_newspaper_publishers_all.php 
 .Pew Internet & American Life Project. (2010). Understanding the Participatory 
News Consumer: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-News/Part-1/3-The-
news-platforms-people-use.aspx?r=1 
 .Kiesow, Damon. (Feb 12, 2010). Mobile Media: 
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=134&aid=177776 
 


Future of the Newspaper in and Digital Age of Communication

http://irjms.in/sites/irjms/index.php/files/article/download/433/390

Future of the Newspaper in and Digital Age of Communication

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

International Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJMS)