The ‘traditional’ media industry — newspapers and magazines and the like — have had a difficult time lately thanks to increasing competition online. This book’s chapters consider ways the traditional media can reinvent themselves to secure their future. Two key themes that emerge from the chapters are the importance of building communities and the increasing role of credibility in today’s highly competitive media landscape. While this book does not focus on the science media, many of the conclusions are relevant to it, in fact some are cause for comfort for those involved with science journalism

Ridgway, A I

English

UWE Bristol Research Repository

The new commodities of the new media landscapeGRAHAM, G., GREENHILL, A., SHAW, D. AND VARGO, C., EDS. (2015)BookCONTENT IS KING: NEWS MEDIA MANAGEMENT IN THE DIGITAL AGE.LONDON, U.K.: BLOOMSBURYAndy RidgwayReviewed byThe ‘traditional’ media industry — newspapers and magazines and thelike — have had a difficult time lately thanks to increasing competitiononline. This book’s chapters consider ways the traditional media canreinvent themselves to secure their future. Two key themes that emergefrom the chapters are the importance of building communities and theincreasing role of credibility in today’s highly-competitive media landscape.While this book does not focus on the science media, many of theconclusions are relevant to it, in fact some are cause for comfort for thoseinvolved with science journalism.AbstractPopularization of science and technology; Science and media; SciencewritingKeywordsWhat’s the bookabout?Back in 2006, Time magazine chose ‘You’ as the person of the year. While you maynot have been aware of the honour bestowed on you until now, it was. And it’s alldown to the contribution that you, and me, and everyone else makes to the font ofknowledge that is the internet, via YouTube, Wikipedia and the like. Now, asanyone involved with the media industry in the past decade or so knows, thisdemocratization of communication has led to certain challenges. Not least of whichare declining circulations and redundancies as consumers have sought their newsfrom new online sources.This book, a collection of chapters by a collection of academics, is an attempt tounderstand how the digital revolution has affected the media industry and, moreimportantly, offer solutions. One thing to make clear is that this book does notfocus in any way on science journalism and science writing. In fact, aside from achapter that explores what science fiction might tell us about the future of themedia industry (quite a lot as it turns out — more on that later), the word ‘science’is not mentioned once.But, much of what is said in its pages applies equally well to the science writingindustry as it does to the local and national non-specialist print media, which areBook Review Journal of Science Communication 15(04)(2016)R01 1the focus of the book. In fact, some of the conclusions here should be a cause forcomfort for anyone involved with science journalism.Who is the bookfor?This book nails its flag to the mast in the first chapter, stating explicitly that it isaimed at ‘those who manage or hope to manage news media’ — includingstudents. While there is much straightforward analysis and practical advice in itspages for practitioners, some chapters feel quite theoretical and abstract. The resultis likely to be a rather mixed bag of usefulness for the stated target audience. At thesame time, some of the detailed practicalities of publishing explored in the book(such as the ins and outs of finding a suitable production slot when a digitalpublisher decides to venture into print) are likely to leave the academic reader cold.What is it like? In an outstanding chapter on disruptive technology, Chris Vargo at the Universityof Alabama and Donald Shaw at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hillexplore the lessons that can be learned by the media industry from disruptiveinnovation theory [Christensen, 2011]. This theory holds that media companieshave failed to invest in emerging media techniques such as microblogging,user-generated content and sponsored content because of the low financial returnsthat these services offer. Most of the value of these services, such as convenienceand low cost, are benefits for the consumer.Vargo and Shaw say that some observers suggest that when a disruptivetechnology rises, the old incumbents — traditional media in this instance —disappear. But, they say, Ahlers [2006] notes that the disruptive media have notreplaced the traditional media to the extent that had been predicted. Vargo andShaw suggest that the key function that news media have provided is communityand the desire for community has not changed on the part of consumers. What haschanged is that the new ‘digital disruptors’ — Twitter, Facebook and the like — doit better. And where once community was geographically defined, newcommunication technologies allow consumers to choose from a wider range ofcommunities — ones that allow them to explore their interests. The key then, sayVargo and Shaw, is that the media must find these communities and engage withthem effectively; create demand for what they have to say. Once there’s demand,that’s when payments come through the likes of YouTube and Facebook.Sounds straightforward. But creating demand like this requires attrition and a fewfailures along the way. Vargo and Shaw acknowledge that this process is “prone totrial and error” and earlier in the chapter that even the new cool kids on the block,such as the mighty Google, get it wrong sometimes — Google Buzz and GoogleWave being examples of ideas that did not stand the test of time.The diversity of the chapter authors adds diversity to the opinions and ideassuggested. In chapter 9, Mikko Sihvonen at Manchester Metropolitan Universityand Seamus Simpson at the University of Salford state that digital technology“. . . have developed in a context wherein economic imperatives have assumedprimacy over journalistic standards.” (p. 158). To mitigate this they suggest publicsubsidies for news that has “intrinsic public value” as well as a publically fundedlarge, well resourced “public-service media operator” (the BBC comes to mind). InJCOM 15(04)(2016)R01 2other words, we can’t rely on market forces to give us important services likeinvestigative journalism and overseas news reporting.The downside of this eclectic authorship of chapters is that it leads to somefrustrating repetition at the beginning of chapters as each authoring team sets thecontext for their analysis. We read on more than one occasion that the medialandscape has changed over the past decade or so. But that’s not to say that thisbook does not contain insightful comment and analysis. There are also somethemes that tellingly crop up repeatedly in the chapters.One of which is the importance of credibility in this new media landscape — bothof the media organisations and the journalists who work for them. In chapter 12,Gary Graham at Leeds University Business School, Anita Greenhill at theUniversity of Manchester and Maria Jose Hernandez Serrano at the University ofSalamanca, Spain, report the results of interviews with news organisations in theUK. Most insightful are the interviews with one local news publication, NewsChronicle, which has shifted its “value-creation strategy from attention to trust”.Where printed newspapers have relied on creating attention to maintain theirbusiness, this has lost its relevance as news of incidents travels faster via the likesof Twitter than conventional means. “However trust can be understood to be ascarce resource,” say the authors. They say the News Chronicle’s ultimate aim is tobuild itself into a “trusted data hub”.There are some useful thoughts earlier in the book about what that means at anindividual level. Chris Vargo, in chapter 10, citing Weimann [1991; 1994], says thatopinion leaders on social media are not necessarily celebrities, they can also be“those that ordinary people turn to for information and advice.” (p. 167). So theseopinion leaders, says Vargo, can be journalists. “Encouraging journalists not to actlike a celebrity on Twitter but instead as a constant, reliable source of qualityinformation makes them valuable.” (p. 167). While Vargo’s focus— understandably given the emphasis of the book — is on local news, this lesson isimportant for any journalist, including science journalists.So in short, the key messages from this book revolve around engaging with thenew communities that have emerged online and creating trust within thosecommunities, so you, the journalist or media organisation as a whole, are a valuedcontributor. That’s not to say this will be an easy transition. As American writerClay Shirky, quoted in this book, states in his essay Newspapers and Thinking theUnthinkable: “That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets brokenfaster than the new stuff is put in its place.”So what does science fiction tell us about the future of the media industry? Well, forstarters, science fiction has changed with the times. Clark Kent, Superman, left theDaily Planet “in a huff” in October 2012, and, we are told in chapter 11, isrumoured to be writing a blog or working for a reality show. Spiderman, PeterParker, left his job as a news photographer with the Daily Bugle to join a think tank,Horizon Labs. So even superheroes have had their reservations about the mediaindustry. On a more positive note, science fiction shows us where the technology ofcommunication may take journalism; augmented reality placing news reports overour everyday experiences and journalists providing access to their streams ofconsciousness to followers (a slightly chilling thought).JCOM 15(04)(2016)R01 3There’s more cause for optimism from science fiction too. Even in the mostdystopian of futures painted, there is a place for journalism. “What we can takesolace in is that, even in the most disjointed future, we see a demand for journalismand its power-checking role, plus a plethora of technological innovations that willfuel the next generation of journalists” (p. 189). Phew.References Ahlers, D. (2006). ‘News Consumption and the New Electronic Media’. The HarvardInternational Journal of Press/Politics 11 (1), pp. 29–52. DOI:10.1177/1081180X05284317.Christensen, C. M. (2011). The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book ThatWill Change The Way You Do Business. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Harper Business.Weimann, G. (1994). The Influentials: People Who Influence People. Albany, NY,U.S.A.: SUNY Press.Weimann, G. (1991). ‘The Influentials: Back to the Concept of Opinion Leaders?’Public Opinion Quarterly 55 (2), pp. 267–279. DOI: 10.1086/269257.Author Andy Ridgway is a Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the University ofthe West of England in Bristol. Before that, he spent 20 years working as ajournalist, most recently as a science journalist. E-mail: andy.ridgway@uwe.ac.uk.Ridgway, A. (2016). ‘The new commodities of the new media landscape’.How to citeJCOM 15 (04), R01.This article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial -NoDerivativeWorks 4.0 License.ISSN 1824 – 2049. Published by SISSA Medialab. http://jcom.sissa.it/.JCOM 15(04)(2016)R01 4

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