death of print _ the decline of traditional media

8/8/2019 Death of Print _ the Decline of Traditional Media

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/death-of-print-the-decline-of-traditional-media 1/42

f Print :: The decline of traditional media?

ww.deathofprint.co.uk/decline.html[9/12/2010 9:36:12 PM]

Home

About the project

What is digital media?

Is digital media part of everyday life?

The decline of traditional media?

The future

Conclusion

References

Death o f Pr in t ?

Death of Print: The decline of print and traditional

medias? is a a research project by Matthew Carlin a BAMultimedia Student at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

The research is looking into the apparent decline of

traditional media as reported by some media

organisations, and will evaluate whether traditional

media is still a viable format in the 21st century.

Want more info or want to comment? E-mail Me

The dec l ine o f t rad i t i onal med ia?

Looking at reports in the press with titles such as “Google almost doubles profit as advertisers rush online”

http://www.deathofprint.co.uk/index.html

http://www.deathofprint.co.uk/about.html

http://www.deathofprint.co.uk/references.html

mailto:[email protected]









(Guardian 2006) “UK online ad spend worth almost £1bn” (Guardian 2006), “ITV braced for £80m slump in ad

revenue” (Guardian 2006), “Channel 4 plans to raise ad rates”, (Guardian 2006) describing how online

advertising spend is up whilst in the traditional medias they are struggling for advertising revenue, one could

potentially think that digital media is now signalling a decline in traditional medias.

However whilst this may be the case there are certainly other issues we should consider. Firstly, a similar thing

happened around the last so called “dot.com bubble”. Businesses flocked online, spending millions advertising

etc... Then the “dot.com bubble” burst leaving many people in serious debt. It could be considered that this

current increase in online advertising is just another “dot.com bubble”, only time will tell whether this is the case

or not. Secondly, this increase could be a temporary “blip” so to speak. Many of the traditional media companies

have been slow to act on digital media, meaning that some of the newer so called “new media” companies have

been able to take up a large market share quickly in the absence of any real competition. It could be argued that

once the traditional media companies embrace digital media that we may see this shift in advertising revenue

rebalance itself as the traditional media companies will be able to integrate digital media into their traditional

medias easier than a digital media company can integrate itself into the tightly controlled and extremely

competative traditional media market. We have already seen some of the traditional media companies trying to

buy their way into the successful new media companies for example, News International buying the company

that owns the hugely successful MySpace.com website. Again it may be a number of years before we can see

whether this theory is correct.

Also the Guardian reports that “TV not losing out to Google, say analysts” this reports describes how Dominic

Proctor, chief executive of the media agency Mindshare Worldwide feels that it is not because of digital media

companies like Google that ITV and Channel 4 are facing problems with their advertising revenue. He describes

how “Although it is fair to say that Google is growing at a huge rate, the issue is not comparing apples with

apples - Google is involved in search and ITV is brand building.” He also describes how “"It is the wrong

conclusion to say that ITV is losing out to Google. Google has tapped an immense 'long tail' of small advertisers

that would never be traditional TV advertisers anyway.”

Proctor certainly raises some good points although it could be argued that Google is now concentrating on brand

building especially with the acquisition of Youtube.com “Google nets YouTube in $1.65bn takeover”, it seems

that Google is now trying to take on these traditional media companies. Admittedly it is theorised that one of the

reasons that that Google bought Youtube is because of the huge success of Youtube and the somewhat

moderate success of Google own video project, “Google Video”. Even with this though and the only moderate

success of Google’s own video project, it is clear to see that Google has ambitions beyond just searching. Whilst

the video’s on youtube.com can only be a maximum of 10 minutes long, which somewhat restricts it’s ability to

truly take the place of traditional media, how long before they lift this restriction enabling full length shows to be

broadcast via youtube. Youtube has already signed deals with some of the major media companies in America

for their content, signalling that Google are wanting to make Youtube.com more than just a place where





amateurs upload videos. Even the media firm Aegis has started to move it’s advertising spend to sites like

youtube.com (Guardian 2006)

The same report also describes how the TV advertising market has actually grown from “£3.2bn in 2003 to

£3.5bn this year.” So it appears that the recent advertising slump occurring at ITV may be down to more factors

than just the rise of digital media such as Google. This evidence is backed up by another Guardian report “Poor

outlook for TV advertising growth” (Guardian 2006). This report describes how Carat, a media buyer owned by

the company Aegis has “raised its 2006 spending forecasts for the global advertising market” (Guardian 2006)

but it has “slashed estimates for the troubled UK sector because of the dire performance of TV” this indicates

that the major problems faced by Channel 4 and ITV may be mainly a UK based problem, and not strictly down

to the rise of digital media and online advertising spending.

Interesting though with all the reports describing this decline of t raditional media compared to digital media, therehave been reports of digital media companies such as Myspace and Google using traditional media methods.

“MySpace weighs up spin-off magazine” (Guardian 2006). This reports how Myspace is considering a “spin-off

print magazine” for the users and fans of Myspace. Although this is less surprising since the takeover of

Myspace by News International and the want to integrate it into some of News International print output. Google

has also used traditional media recently “Google Ads share the love with newspapers” (Guardian 2006),

“Google's radio ads” (Guardian 2006) both of these report on a trial being conducted by Google on it’s

advertising output, both of the trials for the different mediums work along similar lines to Google’s “Adwords”

technology used on it’s search engine. Long established internet and search engine company Yahoo is also

conducting a similar trial with US local newspapers “Yahoo! to share classified ads with US local newspapers”

Yahoo has signed a deal with 150 local US newspapers to provide them with classified advertising and content.

It can also be argued that another one of the reasons why these digital media companies are trialling or making

deals with local newspapers (like Yahoo) relates back to one of characteristics of digital media described in thechapter “What is digital media?” One of digital media characteristics is that whilst it can be a mass media it can

also be personalised unlike traditional forms of mass media. Whilst this is true, one of the most popular forms of

digital media, the world wide web has struggled until recently to be personalised or “local”, yes it is possible and

rather clever that you can speak to someone on the other side of the world. A lot of the time though, users of the

World Wide Web want local content, hey want to be able to see when the bus is coming, or when the film they

want to see at the cinema is on, or what is happening in their town. Digital media’s characteristics that it is in a

“constant state of flux” (Lister 2006) rather than fixed lends itself perfectly to this. Where digital media has failed

mainly is actually being able to deliver that local content, this is why they are making deals with the local

newspapers etc to enable to finally make the idea a reality. Traditional media companies are also trying to use

digital media for the very same thing “ITV broadband television in starting blocks” (Guardian 2006) reports ITV is

“gearing up for the launch of its local broadband TV service, ITV Local” The same report also describes how ITV

has also acquired Enable Media, which owns directory service Scoot, another part of ITV local strategy. As we





can see there is a clear trend by both traditional and digital media companies towards providing this local content

and this can be seen in advertising campaigns such as yell.com made by the company AKQA (AKQA 2005)

Another trend that indicates the decline in the use of traditional media is business paying media agencies to

produce digital media. This can be seen in the work produced by the agency AKQA on behalf of client yell.com.

(AKQA, 2005). Not only did AKQA produce the traditional media like,posters,and Television Sponsorship

advertising, they also went beyond this and produced not only interactive digital 6 sheet posters, online

advertising (in the form of video banners) but the agency also implemented a GPS system into advertising on the

sides of London buses.

This means that users of these posters can find local content without having to resort to using the internet or

other means. This has advantages over the use of traditional media; if the poster were a static traditional poster

there would be no means to update. So if a company wanted to advertise local content it would require more

hours to keep having to produce content, which would take up a massive amount of time, and thus be costly. The

interactive 6 sheet posters also fit into the key point of digital media described in chapter 1. These are:

• Hypertextual and immersive navigation properties

• That digital media is in a “constant state of flux” rather than being fixed.

• Registrational interactivity

• That it is a mass production technology but one that is personalised.

The interactive 6 sheet posters fit perfectly into this idea. A user of the poster has registrational interactivity with

it, they are able to put in basic information and it produces something back to the user, the screen is also in a

constant state of flux as it can be updated whenever necessary to provide up to date content, this is easier and





quicker than using traditional media. It could also be a mass produced technology available in every bus shelter

yet remain still local to that area and user and depending on the input of the user ,making it personalised.

From this real world example, we can see that digital media has advantages over the use of traditional media, as

it stands, digital media may be more costly to set up than traditional media in some cases, (such as installing

interactive video screens in every bus shelter) but it has unique properties that make it a much more effective

medium in a lot cases too As prices of digital media drop, we may see more video screens being put into bus

shelters. This price drop may already be seen by the fact that Transport for London has recently a deal to install

video screens in every tube station in Zone 1 of the London Underground network. (International Herald Tribune

2006). The same report also details another advertising company has signed a deal to install 1600 digital ad

screens at Heathrow and various other sites.

As we have seen then in this chapter the theory that digital media has advantages over traditional media appears

to be true, to test this though the report embarked on a case study to test this theory in practice.

Case Study:The Guard ian

This case study will compare and evaluate the print output of the Guardian Newspaper against the output of the

Guardian Unlimited website over a set period of time. The case study will consider whether the Guardian

Unlimited Website has any advantages over the print output, it will also consider if any, what can not be done by

the Guardian Unlimited website compared to the Guardian’s traditional output.

The use of digital media such as the internet for news reporting has been around in some forms for many years.

There have been websites reporting on wildly varied topics since the internet was first around. It is only recently

however that the ‘major players’ from the traditional news media industries have had a presence online. For

example, the Guardian Unlimited website first launched in 1999 (Guardian 2007), this was one of the first of the

‘major players’ to launch and recently we have seen numerous other traditional news media launch websites to,

for example the Newspaper “The Sun” also recently launched. It is only in recent years however that the use of

the internet to read new has increased dramatically; this could be down to broadband now being widely

available. Broadband has enabled users on these sites to get a much richer experience than they previously

could with dial up. Instead of just a predominantly text based site, we now how visually rich sites with images and

even videos.

To begin the case study the report will firstly look at the guardian newspapers circulation figures versus the

Guardian Unlimited websites users. According the guardian themselves the print version of the guardian has an

average daily circulation of 378,738 (Guardian 2006) and an average issue readership of 1,222,000 (Guardian

2006). The guardian also has figures for its website; it reports that it has 133,598,518 page impressions per

month and 13,841,182 unique users per month. If we break the websites monthly figure down to average

number of page impressions per day (taking a month as 31 days) then we have a figure of 4,309,629 page





impressions per day, and if we take the number of unique user per month and get a daily figure for that we get

an average of 446,489 unique users per day. If we take the number of unique users per month and compare it to

the average daily circulation of the newspaper then we see that the website in theory has over 60,000 more

users that than the newspaper sells each day. From this evidence it shows that there is indeed a place for online

news and that more people are using digital media for this than they are using traditional media.

The report will now look at compare and analyse on a daily basis the Guardian Unlimited website versus the

Guardian Newspaper.

Day 1

This was the Homepage of the Guardian Unlimited website, on the first day of the case study.

As we can see from the screenshot in figure 3.1. The Guardian Unlimited Website has a headline at the top of

the page in this case “Saddam sentenced to hang” as well as links to other important news items for that point of

time on the day. For example there is a link to a football story about the previous day’s football match (in black

underneath the main navigation). If you compare this to the Guardian’s print output the same day ( in figure 3,2)





We can see that the print version features the same headline as the website albeit phrased slightly differently

“Endgame for a dictator: Saddam sentenced to hang” It may be phrased differently to help attract potential

buyers of the printed Guardian, as a eye catching headline is needed on newspapers in order to make it stand

out from the crowd of other newspapers around it. With a website, a slightly different technique is needed to

attract readers (or users). Yes a website should stand out from the crowd but unlike a newspaper it doesn’t often

have competing titles directly next to it. This means that the “Headline doesn’t necessarily have to be as big as

the printed version, as other means such as banner advertising, linking of blogs, search engines and other

websites are used to bring in readers and increase traffic to the website. This can be confirmed by the

screenshot in fig 3.1. We can also see by comparing fig 3.1 and 3.2 that some of the same information is

duplicated, the football story is also on the front page of the paper (top right hand corner). The printed version

also contains a number of supplements “G2, mediaguardian,sport” If we look at fig 3.1 we can see that on the

Guardian Unlimited web site we can see in the main navigation (Just below Guardian Unlimited in Black and grey

lettering) that there are links to both a sport section and a media section

If we look at the screenshot in fig 3.3





This is from the Guardian Unlimited website on the evening on the first day of the case study. We can see that

the top headline has now changed from “Saddam sentenced to hang” to “Briton ‘hoped to kill thousands” this is

not only a change of headline but a totally different top story, whilst due to the fixed nature of the traditional

media the headline in the printed version is still the same as in fig 4.2. “Endgame for a dictator: Saddam

sentenced to hang” This already shows one of the advantages of digital media, the fact that it is in a constant





state of flux, meaning that breaking news stories can be easily updated on the website

Day 2

Figure 3.4 shows the screenshot from day 2 of the case study. The top headline on the website is”Republicans

closing the gap” if we take a look at fig 3.5





We can see that the same top story and headline is mirrored in the print version of the Guardian. Strangely

though, the top story on the website from the evening of the previous day does not feature anywhere on the

printed versions front page, it appears on the first inside page. (See fig 3.6) Tuesday printed edition of the

Guardian comes with the supplements “g2, education guardian and sport” It does not however come with the

same supplements of the previous day but again if we take a look at the screenshot of the web site on the

second day (fig 3.3) we can see again there is a link to the previous days supplement on the website. This

shows another advantage of digital media, the fact that “digital media can be compressed into very small

spaces” This means that unlike the unlike the print version, the website can store many more stories than the

paper physically can, this means that whereas the guardian may only be able to include one of their

supplements once a week because of space issues, the website can have all the stories (and more) available all

the time.

If we take a look at fig 3.7, this is from the evening of the second day.





We can see from this that the Headline has changed from the morning “Lawyers poised as US votes” rather than

“Republicans closing the gap” The website has also changed it’s other top stories into a banner to link to the

elections happening in America. Even though only two days of the case study have been analysed we can see a

trend emerging, which is the ability to update the website continuously throughout the day with breaking news

stories. This fits in with the definition of digital media described in the first chapter of this report. The idea that

digital media is in a “constant state of flux”.

Day 3





Fig 3.8 above shows a screenshot of the Guardian Unlimited website on the morning of the third day of the case

study, the top story being “Democrats take control of House” Whilst if we take a look at the print version of the

Guardian on the third day of the case study in fig 3.9





We can see that the headline here is “Lawyers poised as US vote hit by technical glitches” This is interesting as

this is the same headline that appeared on the Guardian website in the evening on the second day, yet by the

third day on the Guardian Unlimited Website, the story has already moved on and changed yet printed version

still has the ‘old’ headline. This again shows that the ideas and definitions of digital media in the chapter “what is

digital media?” such as “digital media being in a constant state of flux” and “It can be manipulated far more easily

than analogue forms.” are not only true theoretically but that they are also true when applied to a ‘real world’

example such as this.





Fig 3.10 above is the Guardian Unlimited website in the evening of the third day of the case study. As we can

see, the top story and headline has changed yet again, this again confirms the theory of digital media being in a

“constant state of flux”.

The print version of The Guardian on day 3 contains the following supplements, sport, and society guardian. As

we can see from the previous days in the case study, the print version of The Guardian doesn’t contain all thesections that the Website carries everyday. Again this confirms the theory of digital media being able to be

compressed into small spaces and shows one of the major advantages of digital media over the traditional

medias.

Day 4

Fig 3.11 below shows the print version of the guardian on the fourth day of the case study, as we can see this

contains the same top story as the Guardian Unlimited website had the day before.





This shows that traditional media can in certain situations be far behind in terms of being up to date.





Comparing this to the Guardian Unlimited website (fig 3.12 below) we can see that it does indeed have the same

top story as the printed version, albeit with a rephrased headline the print version has “The cost of war: Rumsfeld

ousted in US poll fallout” whilst the website just has “Rumsfeld ousted in US poll fallout”. As we have discussed

before though this is due to the nature of selling papers and the need of having an attention grabbing headline.





Whilst on day four, the print version of the Guardian and the Guardian Unlimited website are in sync in terms of

the headline, we have seen from day 3 of the case study that the Guardian Unlimited website was way ahead in

terms of reporting the story, being able to report it numerous hours before the traditional print version can.

Looking at fig 3.13. below, we can see from this screenshot of the Guardian website that it is again ahead by

numerous hours in reporting a breaking story. Again this confirms one of digital media’s main advantages overtraditional media, the ability for digital media to be updated almost instantaneously.





Day 5





Fig 3.15 (below shows the front page from the print edition of the Guardian on the same day.





Again we can see from comparing these two that the website is again ahead of the edition in the reporting of

news stories, whilst the headline of the print edition is “MI5 30 terror plots being planned in UK”, we can see in fig

3.15 , the website has already moved this story to be of lesser importance and instead shows us the headline

“Blair backs terror warning” with the story of “30 terror plots being planned in the UK” only being a smaller link.

As we have seen from the other days of this case study, the website being ahead of the print version in terms of

a breaking news story is certainly a trend for the Guardian.

Looking as a whole at the print version of the Guardian and the Guardian Unlimited website, and not just at

specific days, there are a number of advantages that the Guardian Unlimited website has over the print version.

The website offers a number of digital services such under the title “News Direct” (see fig 3.16).





These services include “G24 PDF service”, this is a service which allows a user to download an Adobe PDF’s of

the latest stories and if they would like print it out to compile their own newspaper.The news direct service also

includes “Desktop Alerts” allowing a Microsoft Windows user to download a little programme which sits on their

desktop that is continuously updated with the latest stories about various categories such as sport, media etc.

They also offer a very similar service via e-mail where a user can have links to that day’s story e-mailed to them.

This service is also on offer in the form of mobile text alerts. The other way in which the Guardian website offers

digital services, is in the form of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. These are becoming increasingly

popularly on the web, as they allow information to be continuously updated throughout the day, and if you have

the right software for these you can see all the headlines throughout the day with out having to revisit a website

numerous times throughout the day. As the Guardian Unlimited website is on the World Wide Web it potentially

means that the Guardian can use videos to tell the story rather than just words, this is something that print

version has never been able to do.

All of these extra services that the Guardian Unlimited website offers are only possible because of some of

digital media’s properties as described in the chapter “What is digital media?” Properties such as how Lister

describes digital media:

• Media texts are ‘dematerialised’ in the sense that they are separated from their physical form as photographic

print book, roll of film etc;

• Data can be compressed into very small spaces;

• It can be accessed at very high speeds and in non linear ways;

• It can be manipulated far more easily than analogue forms.

Because digital media has properties such as these, it means that the Guardian Unlimited website can offer

there digital services, without it costing too much or having to spend too much time on it. Lister describes how

“digital media is in a constant state of flux” (Lister 2003) and this case study of the guardian proves this as we

have seen their website changing throughout the day unlike the print version of the Guardian which is fixed

throughout the day. This is because unlike digital media which Lister describes as “existing in a mathematical

realm”(Lister 2003), print media exists as a fixed object that you can touch, to change this throughout the day as

news stories broke would not only be prohibit ably expensive but would take large amount of time that the paper

simply wouldn’t have, plus they would then have to re-distribute that printed media to the whole country again

and again.

The Guardian Unlimited website also offers a form of registrational interactivity that the print version does not

have. Registrational interactivity is, as we have seen in chapter “What is digital media?” is one of the

characteristics of digital media, and it is the ability for the user of the medium to interact with a medium by

“writing back”(Lister 2003). Yes one could argue that the print version of The Guardian, like many newspapers

offers the reader to write letters into the newspaper, thus being a form of registrational interactivity. The report

feels that this is a very basic form of registrational interactivity. As a reader is not directly interacting with that





medium, they are merely writing back to the paper, unlike on say the Guardian Unlimited website, where users

are able to type in comments on many of the stories, see fig 4.17 below. This means that this is a better from of

registrational interactivity and because of digital media fluid nature, users of the website are instantaneously able

to view other users comments on respond to them.

Conc lus ions o f c ase s tudy

From the case study of the guardian we can see that by comparing the digital media version to the traditional

media version, the digital media version has many advantages over that of the print version. Not only can the

digital media version be updated far easier than the print version, it also offers more than the print version offers.

It offers the user a better form of registrational interactivity, it also offers the user the ability to be updated

constantly, and this as we have seen is due to the nature and characteristics of digital media. At least for the

guardian it seems as though digital media means that it can offer far more to its users or readers than thetraditional media version can.

Next Chap te r

Previous Chapter

Ba ck to t o p

http://-/?-

http://-/?-



h of Print? :: What is digital media?

/www.deathofprint.co.uk/whatis.html[9/12/2010 9:37:19 PM]

Home

About the project




The future

ConclusionReferences

Death o f Pr in t ?


medias? is a a research project by Matthew Carlin a BA

Multimedia Student at Nottingham Trent University, UK






What is d ig i ta l media?

Firstly, “digital media” and “new media” are often used as interchangeable terms for the same thing, this is

“media that uses computers” (Lister, 2003) whilst this is an adequate term to describe new media, we must

realise that there are also different kinds of “new media” “New Media: A critical introduction” (Lister, 2003)

describes new media in the following ways:

• New textual experiences

• New ways of representing the world

• New relationships between subjects (Users & Consumers) and media technologies

• New Experiences of the Relationship between embodiment, identity and community

• New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to technological media

>













• New patterns of organisation and Production

Using this description as a basis we can see that digital media such as the internet can be described in these

ways. The internet provides a new way of representing the world through numerous websites with massively

varied content; it also helps to provide new textual experiences, through the many interactive possibilities of t

World Wide Web. So using the internet as an example we can see Listers idea fits.

Lister describes how Digital media can also be divided and described in the following ways:

• Computer-mediated communication: email, chat rooms, MUDs MOOs, avatar based communication forms

secondlife.com), voice image transmissions, the web and mobile telephony.

• New ways of distributing and consuming media texts characterised by interactivity and hypertext formats – t

World Wide Web, CD-ROM, DVD and the various platforms for computer games.

• Virtual reality: from simulated environments to fully immersive representational spaces.

• A whole range of transformations and dislocations of established media (in, for example, photography,

animation, television, film an cinema.)

Another characteristic of digital media, Lister argues is that “analogue media tends to be fixed, whilst digital

media tends to be in a constant state of flux.” This is because traditional media tends to be analogue existinga fixed physical object (i.e. a vinyl record) whilst digital media exists as a string of binary numbers. Traditiona

media is also considered to be fixed as if we wanted to edit traditional or “analogue” media we would have to

through a physical process to change it, for example if we wanted to alter film stock we would have to go thro

a process of getting a new set of prints and chemically altering them whilst if the film is in a digital medium w

can precisely select certain pixels to change.

On the other hand, Lunenfield in “The Digital Dialectic” (Lunenfield 2000) argues that “digital is more than sim

a technical term to describe systems and media dependent on electronic computation, just as the analog, wh

preceded it, describes more than a proportional system of representation.”

Lunenfield also argues that one of the aesthetics of digital media is described as “Unfinish” (Lunenfield 2000)

similar way Lister defines new media as “in a constant state of flux”

Another way that Lister describes some of the characteristic of digital media, in particular the practice of

digitisation is that “released from only existing in the material realm of physics, chemistry and engineering an

shift into a symbolic computational realm.” He also argues that the consequences of this are:

• Media texts are ‘dematerialised’ in the sense that they are separated from their physical form as photograp

print book, roll of film etc;

• Data can be compressed into very small spaces;

• It can be accessed at very high speeds and in non linear ways;

• It can be manipulated far more easily than analogue forms.

This idea can be argued to be becoming ever truer as technology like CPU’s, hard drives and memory get ev

faster or bigger and cheaper. Enabling users to enable users to do what Lister describes faster and more

efficiently.

From this short description it is fair to say that with these characteristics, digital media has some advantages

over the traditional medias. It could be argued also that this is one of the reasons why digital media is growin

increasingly popular in a society that is driven towards making things easier, quicker and cheaper.





The history of digital media is a somewhat recent one but what should not be forgotten is that traditional med

has played some part in the success of digital media.

If we look at the major medias of the 19th and 20th centuries, Television and print, whilst they were an analo

process, they were more importantly technologies of mass production. Digital Media in one sense is very mu

like traditional media in the way that is a mass production technology; one of digital medias properties is the

that it is stored as a mathematical formula enabling it to be copied much easier than traditional media. But on

could argue that digital media is a more personalised mass technology, than say broadcast media like televisThis can be seen in websites like youtube.com and also the launch of so called interactive media players by

channel 4 and the BBC. These sites and media players enable users to choose what they would like to see

rather than what the television network thinks they would like to see.

Lister argues as well that with the development of broadcast media, and the fact that an analogue physical ob

is electronically converted into a series of waves “that digital media technologies do not represent a complete

break with traditional analogue media”. This is an interesting idea; broadcast media isn’t considered digital ev

though the waves have to be electronically converted.

Lister also argues that the computer “viewed as a medium itself, can be all other medias” (Lister 2003) This c

be argued to be true especially with the recent launch of website’s like youtube.com and flickr.com. These sithave both gave the user the ability to do something that traditional media already does, Youtube allows to wa

video online and flickr.com allows you to store and share your photos on the internet. The report feels that th

internet has been one of the biggest indicators in this; recent digital technologies like web 2.0 have enabled t

computer and the internet to truly replicate the traditional medias.

This idea that “the computer, viewed as a medium itself can be all other media” is an example of the theory p

forward by Jay David Bolter of “Remediation” This theory is the way that one medium absorbs and transforms

another medium. This as we speak is one of key characteristics of digital media; in recent years it has had th

ability to “remediate” other media such as television via sites such as youtube.com and flickr.com

Another characteristic that defines some forms of digital or “new media” is how a user navigates the media.

There are essentially two modes of navigation, there is “Hypertextual Navigation” (Lister 2003) and “Immersiv

Navigation” (Lister 2003) In hypertextual navigation, a “a user must use the computer apparatus and software

make reading choices in a database” (Lister 2003) though as Lister points out “the term ‘database’ in a gener

rather than specifically technical sense” this means that it could be any form of stored information e.g. the wo

wide web or the hard drive on a computer. The other form of navigation is “Immersive navigation” (Lister 200

this Lister argues is navigating “a representation of space” or a 3d world rather than navigating data or

information. Though Lister does argue that you could see immersive navigation as “similar to hypertextual

navigation but with additional qualities” Hypertextual navigation is one quality that distinguishes digital and ne

media from the traditional medias. In the traditional medias, a viewer or reader is effectively forced to naviga

a way that is dictated by the producer of that particular medium. For example, if a viewer is watching a Televi

channel they are forced to watch what the broadcaster screens at set times, one after the other. Whilst in

hypertextual navigation a user is effectively allowed to control where they want to go, unrestricted by the

broadcaster (or similar producer of traditional media content). A 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush, he proposes

idea that “The human mind operates by association. With on item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next th

suggested by the association of thoughts, in association with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells

the brain” (Vannevar 1945) It is often thought that this idea helped with the technology and implementation of

hypertext and hypertextual navigation. This idea can also be seen in the tagging systems present on sites like

youtube.com and flickr.com





Another key characteristic of many digital media is “registrational interactivity” (Lister 2003) or the ability for th

user of the medium to interact with it by “writing back” (Lister 2003) Registrational interactivity can be someth

as simple as a user sending there contact information to a website to something like a web forum or one cou

even argue to participating in a web 2.0 site i.e. youtube.com, flickr.com, or myspace.com. Lister uses the

definition “any media text which solicits users’ views, feedback, or stories in any kind of recordable form” whi

the websites mentioned describe perfectly.

As we can see, even though digital or “new media” comes in many different forms, from the world wide web,

interactive CD Rom’s or even interactive ad campaigns like the work done for yell.com by Media agency AKQ

(AKQA 2005) It still has some underlying principles that define it, for many people it is something that is prod

by a computer or that has to be accessed via some sort of computer. This seems a reasonable description o

digital media, but one should be in mind maybe it could define something that is electronically converted,

depending on your point of view. It is worth pointing out here that that the term digital media is probably bette

suited than the term “new media”. There is essentially nothing “new” about “new media” A lot of new media is

simply “remediation” (Bolter ) of existing medias .So it would be fair to dis-courage the use of this term.

To conclude, other key characteristics of digital media are:

• Hypertextual and immersive navigation properties

• That digital media is in a “constant state of flux” rather than being fixed.

• Registrational interactivity

• That it is a mass production technology but one that is personalised.

In conclusion, digital media has many properties many of which are universally acknowledged by everyone a

others that are only subscribed to by some, but as can be seen there are common properties that are shared

all forms of digital media. Now that we have seen what digital media is or can be it is worth asking the questi

does digital media now play a part in everyday life?

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

B ac k t o t o p


http://-/?-

http://-/?-




h of Print? :: Does digital media now play a part in everyday life?

/www.deathofprint.co.uk/digitalife.html[9/12/2010 9:38:09 PM]

Home

About the project




The future


Death o f Pr in t ?









Does d ig i ta l media now p lay a par t in everday l i fe?

According to reports in the press it could seem that way. The BBC news website reports that “Online video

'eroding TV viewing'” (bbc.co.uk 2006) The BBC commissioned an ICM survey and found that “43% of Briton

who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal

as a result.” (bbc.co.uk 2006) Along with this, the survey found that online video viewing is increasing with thr

quarters of those surveyed said “they now watched more than they did a year ago” (bbc.co.uk 2006) Figure 2

gives a breakdown of the survey results

>













Interestingly though, while the survey found that online video viewing was increasing it also found that online

video viewers are still in a minority. It concluded that only “9% of the population do it regularly” and “two-third

the population said they did not watch online and could not envisage starting in the next 12 months.” (bbc.co

2006)

The survey also found that there seems to be a generation gap in the use of or viewing of online and mobile

video. It found that viewing of online video was popular among the 16-24 age group but the viewing of online

video decreased as the age groups got older. Interestingly though that whilst as a general trend the percenta

of those age groups watching online video falls as the age gets older, it does rise again in he 65+ age group

possible theory on this could be the fact that in general people of this age group have more time on their han

than some of the other age groups. The results of this can be seen in figure 2.2

We can see from the BBC report (the video can be seen below) then that online and mobile video viewing is

increasing. Whilst online video viewing may still be in the minority, this report suggests that there is a significa

trend in the use of online video.





This trend is also confirmed by a recently published International Communications Report by OFCOM. This

report analysed trends in the global television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications

industries.One of the reports key points was that

“In every country surveyed, broadband usage appears linked to a decline in conventional television viewing. O

average around one-third of consumers with broadband access said they watch less television since going

online. Conversely, internet access appears to have a positive effect on radio listening, offsetting a decline in

hours spent listening to conventional broadcast radio.” (OFCOM 2006)

This trend can also be confirmed by another study by Mediascope Europe. Their study concluded that intern

users in Europe are using the internet more than 11 hours a week, this is “an hour more than last year - send

emails, visiting websites, holding online chats and downloading music” (Guardian 2006). This study also

concludes that “while web usage is on the rise, television viewing has stagnated across Europe this year.”

(Guardian 2006) The same study also concludes that “45% of internet users go online everyday”, This dailyusage is apparently particularly high” among thee 16-24 year old age group, with 53% of those in this catego

who have web access, going online every day” Also the study concludes that “Men also use the web much m

than women with 51% of male web users accessing the internet daily compared with just 38% of women. Th

mediascope survey also looked at when exactly in the day people use the internet it found that “From 6am to

10am the majority of European internet users prefer to listen to the radio or read a paper. But that picture inv

dramatically as the day progresses. From 5.30pm to 9pm, three-quarters of web users are watching TV but

almost as many are accessing the internet - suggesting many are doing both.” (Guardian 2006) The report p

this increase in internet use down to growth in high speed internet access. This has led to people who until

recently, used to only use the internet to say send an e-mail, to enable them to truly use a wealth of multimed

on the web.

Research conducted independently for this report also confirms some of the trends found by both the BBC

survey and Mediascope survey. The research found that for certain age groups at least the average amount

TV they watched per week was less than for how long they used the internet for on average per week. See f

2.3 below.

Age

Range

Avg No. Hrs of TV

Watched

Avg Hrs using

Internet

16-20 17.06 21.192

21-30 18.12 22.804

31-40 16.0125 12.125

41-50 30.25 15.7

51-60 27 0

As we can see from fig 2.3 above, for the 16-20 and 21-30 age groups the amount of hours they spend on th

internet is more than for the amount of hours they spend watching television. This confirms the BBC survey

results showing the breakdown of the age groups watching video online. In that survey the 16-24 and 25-34

groups took the biggest shares who were watching online.





Another interesting outcome from the survey conducted for this report but also confirmed by the other Survey

that overall; the amount of hours using the internet is actually more than the hours spent watching TV, althou

admittedly this is only by a just over an hour, (19.6 hours using the internet versus 18.1 spent watching TV)

The survey also discovered that everybody who was surveyed owns a mobile phone (this is backed up by the

recent report by OFCOM into the telecommunications and media Market which discovered that the penetratio

the Mobile market is 110% currently meaning that there are more active phones than people in the UK) (OFC

2006). With this evidence, it is rather unsurprising that everyone surveyed owns a mobile. The fact that everyo

owns a mobile may be one of the factors in the ever increasing penetration of digital media into everyday lifemobile are getting more powerful, they are getting digital camera’s, MP3 players and other such devices in th

This means that they are getting more and more use on a regular basis as they are in a device which people

and carry with them everyday.

The survey also discovered that there was a particularly high ownership of laptops amongst those surveyed.

a figure here) This is probably due to laptops falling dramatically in price in recent years meaning they are no

more affordable to the ‘average working man’. This is probably helping digital media play more of a part in

everyday life as powerful laptop computers are no longer just for people with a large income. The survey also

found that along with a high ownership of laptops, they were also used everyday by most of the people who

owned one. This is showing that at least some forms of digital media are playing a part in the everyday life ofpeople.

The survey conducted by this report also looked into what exactly people were using the internet for. It found

the majority of people used the internet for communicating via e-mail or Instant Messaging. This is not

unsurprising really considering some of digital media’s properties, the fact than it can be turned from one for t

another, that it can be compressed into small spaces easily. It is also quicker to send because of these

properties and because of digital infrastructures in place, why wait for a letter to be delivered in a few days w

you can send an e-mail to the same person that will be delivered almost instantaneously, and while your doin

that why not add a photo to that e-mail without having to print it out, worry about it getting crushed in the pos

This shows why digital media such as e-mail and instant messaging is becoming more and more popular, an

why e-mails are forming a part of a lot of people’s everyday lives.

A high number of participants in the survey also said they used the internet for research.

This is probably due to the fact that internet search engines are now one of the key applications on the World





Wide Web and millions of pounds are poured into developing new and better ways of searching and indexing

internet. Take the example of Google. Goggle started out as a small search engine run by two university

individuals, but quickly became one of the biggest search engines on the World Wide Web, and now it is usu

the first stop for people needing to use a search engine. Google have also launched a number of projects to

only index and make searchable the web but also things like academic books this could be one of the reason

why many people are using the internet for research, it is much easier to go on the internet and search for a

topic than it is to go to the local library and research the same topic. Also because of the nature of digital me

and the fact it can be compressed into small spaces it means that there is many more places to research and

more data than any physical library can hold.

The survey conducted for this report also posed a number of statements to participants and gauged their

response to this on a scale of 1-7, where 1 is they totally agree with the statement and 7 they totally disagree

with the statement. The first statement in this survey was “I use digital media (internet, mobiles etc) more tha

use traditional media (TV, print etc)” see fig 2.5 below

We can see from fig 2.5 above that 65% of those surveyed agree to a certain extent that they use digital med

more than they use traditional media If we take these figures and compare them to the ages of the people wanswered either 1, 2 or 3 (i.e. they agree to a certain extent) then we discover that the majority of the people

who answered that they agree are from the 16-20 or 21-30 category. This confirms the trend put forward by

the BBC and Mediascope survey.

The next statement to be asked was “Digital media has lead to a better quality of life for myself” see fig 2.6

below.





We can see from this that again there is a large percentage who agree to at least some extent to the stateme

proposed, almost 50% of the people surveyed infact. This shows again this trend towards the increasing use

digital media in everyday life, as people are thinking that it is leading towards a better quality of life, therefore

there is tendency to use digital media more. Arguably only 13% strongly agree with the statement, the major

(30%) only just agree with the statement. Again if we look at the ages of those who agreed with the statemen

is mainly the 16-20 and 21-30 age group saying they agree whilst the older age groups tend to either disagre

neither agree nor disagree. Again this data can be seen in appendix B

The next statement asked was “Technology is moving too fast for me to keep up with” Results can be seen

below in fig 2.7

From the results of the asking of this statement, the report discovered that 70% of people asked disagree wi

this statement. This the report feels, shows the trend of digital media becoming part of everyday life, people l

are now ingrained with technology from birth meaning that a lot of people especially the younger generation

very technologically ‘savvy’ meaning that they are keeping up with the technological change. Strangely thoug

on this question there doesn’t seem to be a trend towards the older age groups agreeing with this statement

with the two previous statements, which showed these age groups tending to disagree with the statements.

The next statement asked was “Digital media (internet, mobiles etc) plays a part in my everyday life”. Results

from this are in fig 2.8





As we can see from the chart a large majority strongly agree with this statement that “Digital media (internet,

mobiles etc) plays a part in my everyday life , 66% infact, and those who agree to any extent make up 86%, t

is a clear indication of the trend that digital media is becoming part of everyday life. This statement however, the first two statements in the survey but unlike the previous statement shows a trend of the older age group

disagreeing with the statements, and that there appears to be a generation gap on the use of digital media.

The next statement asked was “I often send e-mail or texts rather than writing letters”.

We can see from fig 2.9 that again a large majority strongly agree with the statement “I often send e-mail or t

rather than writing letters” This again shows that there is definitely a trend for digital media becoming part of

everyday life. 89% of participants say they agree to any extent that they send e-mails or texts rather than wri

letters. This as described previously in this chapter is probably due to the fact that e-mails are quicker and ea

to write than your traditional letter. The research results also show on this question that those who disagree w

this statement are again in the older age groups.

Another statement asked as part of the questionnaire was “In 5 years time I will not be using traditional medi

(TV, Print)”





This statement showed some interesting results, even though in previous questions people agreed that digita

media was part of their everyday life, only 3 % strongly agree that in 5 years time they will not be using

traditional media, the biggest majority in this statement cam from those who strongly agree at 24%. Theseresults however back up the results of the BBC survey. In their survey, when asked how often they watch

online/mobile video 67% of people replied that they never did or could not envisage doing so in the future.

One of the last statements asked in the questionnaire was “I rely on digital media to get things done in my life

The results from this statement are more equal than most of the other statements, however there is still a

majority that agree to any extent that digital media plays a part in their life. (52% who agree, 17% who neithe

agree nor disagree, and 31% who disagree to any extent) This shows that the trend in the use of digital med

everyday life is confirmed by the results of this statement.

There have also been other indications that digital media may be part of everyday life. The BBC news websit

reports on a virtual school “Virtual school ‘beats real thing’.” This report describes how a 12 year old student

“Zack from Grimsby” (bbc.co.uk 2006) logs onto his computer for his “virtual school” everyday at 9am. This is

perfect example of how digital media has now started to play in a part in the everyday lives of people. Instead





having to go to school, a user of this virtual school can use digital media to achieve most things that they usu

learn at a traditional school. However, it is pointed out in the report that there is “no physical exercise or eye

contact, little verbal and physical communication and no chance to learn how to handle the bustle and bullyin

the playground.” And that they have tried to encourage the use of media such as microphones or webcams.

apparently though has had some resistance as most students are “happier quietly texting and retreating from

pressures of speaking up in class.” With this is mind it could be argued that whilst the technology does exist t

enable “virtual school” it is only probably most suitable for those that have had problems with traditional scho

It would also require a large shift in the attitude of the population as parents would have to stay at home to ke

watch on their child rather the child being watched whilst they were at school. With this key point it is unlikely

we will ever see the whole school system based around this kind of virtual school.

A recent Guardian report “Record numbers listen to BBC radio online” (Guardian 2006) reports that the BBC

recorded record figures for its radio on demand service. This suggests another way that digital media has sta

to affect everyday life, instead of having to listen to a radio show where you don’t like the presenter or has go

inferior sound quality, why not listen to your favourite presenter who’s show you missed last night. Or even th

great radio show from America? The mediascope survey mentioned earlier in this chapter suggests that mos

European Internet users “prefer to listen to the radio or read a newspaper between 6am-10am”, it doesn’t

however give a figure on how many of these people are listening to radio via a computer. This would be an

interesting read if this figure was available.

Websites such as secondlife.com also show how far digital media has penetrated everyday life. Secondlife.co

is a virtual community where users interact with other users in a 3d environment, in some ways it is similar to

social networking sites like myspace.com and facebook but it allows you to create an “avatar” to use in the vi

world. Secondlife describes itself as “Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residen

Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 1,932,425

people from around the globe.” It has proved very popular and successful with new users signing up each da

The other key thing that distinguishes this site from the other social networking sites is the ability to make mo

from “virtual land” in secondlife.com’ virtual world. Some users have been so successful making money from

secondlife.com that it is a primary source of income. This evidence shows how far digital media has penetratinto the lives of some people.

The question posed at the beginning of this chapter was “Does digital media now play a part in everyday life?

we can see from the results of the survey conducted for this report confirms the results discovered by the oth

two surveys done by the BBC and Mediascope, along with some of the data discovered by the OFCOM repo

The data shown by all three surveys, confirm there is certainly a trend towards the increasing use of digital

media in everyday life, especially amongst the younger generation, who seem to have adapted to digital med

more than the older generation. The data from the surveys, specifically the BBC survey and the survey

conducted by this report also show that is somewhat of an age gap in the use of digital media, whether this is

to them not having the time to use digital media fully or another reason certainly remains unclear,

We have seen in this chapter then that there is certainly a trend towards the use of digital media in everyday

The results of the surveys and the news reports confirm this. It would be fair to say though that at this point

digital media is not part of the everyday life of everybody, but certainly it is for section of people. This is

confirmed by the results of the survey especially in questions such as “digital media plays a part in my every

life and “I rely on digital media to get things done in my life” This is also confirmed by the fact that even thoug

virtual community such as second life has almost 2 million users there is a tiny amount if you consider this as

percentage of the total population of the entire planet. For digital media like that to be considered to be part o

everyday life you would need its user figures to be in billions rather than millions. It would be interesting to





undertake a similar survey in on this same question in 5 or 10 years time to see if digital media has penetrate

further into the lives of everyday people.

So, does digital media play a part in everyday life? No, but it is certainly a trend for some.

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

B ac k t o t o p



h of Print :: The future?

/www.deathofprint.co.uk/future.html[9/12/2010 9:41:32 PM]

Home

About the project




The future


Death o f Pr in t ?









The fu ture?

This chapter of the report will look into what the future is for both traditional media and digital media, it will

evaluate where they are both heading and also look into new technologies that may help or hinder them.

Firstly, traditional media.

Traditional media seems to have been suffering a somewhat ‘bumpy ride’ recently, as we have seen from this

report there have been reports in the decline of traditional media, Advertising revenues have been falling in th

Major broadcasters of the UK “ITV Braced for £80m slump in ad revenue” (Guardian 2006) though as discus

previously in the report this may be a UK specific problem at the moment as some areas are experiencing

growth in this area such as the markets of Asia.

As we have seen from this report too, there is certainly a trend emerging towards digital media, we have seen













reports of traditional media companies either buying successful digital media companies or traditional media

companies changing their news desks into ‘Multimedia Hubs’ that also produce video content “Newsquest

embraces Multimedia” (Guardian 2006)“ Times fuses print and web business desks”(Guardian 2006).

There have also been hybrid style magazines such as specialten (specialten.com) that come in a magazine s

format but all the content is on a DVD which is enclosed inside. This could potentially be one of the future

formats of the traditional magazine in a world that is seeing an increasing use in digital media, some people

prefer to have something physical in their hands when reading magazines and newspapers, but digital media

such as DVD’s are getting ever cheaper.

The report feels that looking at the evidence, in this report, the future for traditional media is not as bleak as

some people report it to be, Alex Graham of Wall to Wall Television argues “Oh for goodness sake, I think th

every time there is a new technology people predict the death of the old one, but movies didn't kill off

newspapers, television didn't kill off the cinema, video didn't kill off television, and nor did DVDs, and the inte

will not kill off television networks either.” (Guardian 2006) Traditional media will still continue, albeit in a sligh

altered form. It will be no longer sufficient for newspapers to just have print desk, they will have to come into

digital age and produce content for the website as well as for the newspaper, which will involve multimedia hu

remember though, multimedia is not just restricted to purely digital medias. Traditional media will also have to

integrate itself into digital media more tightly, we have seen in things like the BBC news Reports where they you can download the podcast or they tell you to go the website. No longer will Broadcasters be restricted to

television, they will be multi platform broadcasters. This same theory has been discussed at the recent

crossmediaweek.org conference by Gary Carter of FreemantleMedia (video of this can be seen on the DVD)

Carter also points out in the presentation that every time a new technology has come about, people have sa

will be the death of old technology, when television first came out, everyone said that cinema would die out b

cinema is still here. This is what will happen to television and traditional media. They will evolve and adapt to

world full of multimedia possibilities.

Now what is the future for digital media?

As we have seen from this report, and reports in the media, digital media is certainly here to stay. But what is

future for digital media, where will it go from what it is now?

Well in terms of technology, there are new technologies being developed such as roll up screens (bbc.co.uk

2006) and electronic paper (fujitsui). There also technologies such as smart homes falling to lower prices and

being just limited to the super rich. Another key technology being developed is SDR (bbc.co.uk 2006). This is

Software defined radio, essentially a piece of software that can converge a number of different wireless gadg

into one device whether those radio wave signals are 3G OR Wi- fi etc...

Another part of the future of digital media will be the continuing advance of technologies on the internet, such

what we have seen in so called web 2.0. These are technologies that are mimicking what we usually do on th

computer itself. This can be seen now in projects launched by Google such as “Google Doc’s and spreadshe

(Google 2006) This is a word processor and spreadsheet based entirely in a web browser. As digital media

progresses we will see more of this type of thing being replicated on the web, that is computer software bein

replicating purely in an internet browser.

The future of digital media also seems to be mobile. As we have seen in this survey, from independent resea

and OFCOM essentially every person in the United Kingdom owns a mobile. The survey conducted by this re

also shows a high ownership of laptops. As mobiles get more powerful we will see more and more digital me

truly becoming available and usable on a mobile. Look at the history of mobile, 10 years ago, the only thing y





really got a mobile was the ability to make calls and to send texts, now we have 3 Mega pixel camera, colour

screens with the ability to run video (as well as watching mobile TV),wi-fi and mp3 players built into your mob

This has all come about in ten years, in another ten years, mobile will be faster, and have more gadgets in th

Hopefully this will lead to the ability for mobiles to run software and features that we currently use on PC’s no

Laptops we have seen from this report are becoming commonplace and as we have seen that of those who o

them, a majority of them use them almost everyday. The future of digital media will be helped by this, laptops

become commonplace in a lot of households enabling users to not only communicate but to download there

favourite TV show that they have missed, and then watch it on there TV screen wirelessly.

This is what will be the future of digital media; it will continue to push the boundaries of what it can do, and be

able to replicate the traditional medias (at least in some aspects). It will also become more and more mobile

the mobile telephone and laptops get more powerful, faster, cheaper and more efficient.

Next Chapte r

Previous Chapter

B ac k t o t o p



h of Print :: Conclusion

/www.deathofprint.co.uk/conclusion.html[9/12/2010 9:42:29 PM]

Home

About the project




The future


Death o f Pr in t ?









Conclusion

Digital Media: The death of print and traditional medias?

Well, has digital media lead to the demise of traditional media? Looking at the evidence in this report, it woul

fair to answer this question as no; digital media has not lead to the death of print and traditional medias, at le

not at this current point in time.

Admittedly though, as we have seen from the evidence in this report, there is certainly a trend towards the us

digital media, especially in everyday life. This however seems to be coming as a generalisation from the youn

age groups. The evidence of this is in the chapter “Does digital media now play a part in everyday life?” This

shows that for the 16-20 age groups and the 21-30 age groups that the amount of hours they use the interne

is above the amount of hours they watch TV. It would be interesting to do this same report in another 10 yea

see if those who are currently in the 21-30 age group have taken the media habits with them. This evidence












/www.deathofprint.co.uk/conclusion.html[9/12/2010 9:42:29 PM]

shows that there is to at least some extent a generation gap in the use of digital media, older people are tend

to stick the traditional medias that they know and have grown up with.

The report would also argue that traditional media is still a viable format in the 21st Century. As we have see

from this report digital media such as the internet can replicate the traditional medias in what Bolter refers to

“remediation” (Bolter 2000) and we have seen in the first chapter and the case study that digital media does h

advantages over traditional medias such as the characteristic of registrational interactivity possessed by digit

media. Even with these advantages however, digital media has still not taken traditional medias place at leas

the majority. This may be different in the future but digital media will have to overcome problems first, digitalmedia in general is still relatively expensive meaning people such as the poor will not be able to access digit

media as well as traditional media where televisions can be bought relatively cheaply and where newspapers

cheap to read compared with the cost of buying a computer and having to pay for the cost of an internet

connection every month. Measures to combat this have seen free internet access becoming available in publ

libraries, but then there are still disadvantages to this, there is little or no ability to be able to personalise the

computer so if you had your favourite bookmarks for example you would still have to carry these around. This

looses one of the advantages of digital media as it has the ability to personalise itself and shape itself to that

the user. This problem can also be seen in developing countries where they have no infrastructure in place to

able to communicate or power digital media, so there is virtually no internet access (internetworldstats.com

2006), this mean that in those countries digital media is basically non existent, this is another one of the reas

why digital media has not yet lead to the demise of traditional media, it is much easier to give a person of the

developing world a printed piece of paper with an image on that to try and power a laptop, then teach them h

to use it before seeing the image. If developing countries can get these infrastructures in place we may see a

larger shift in the use of digital media globally.

We will also not see the death of traditional medias totally, at least for the foreseeable future. Traditional med

will adapt just as they have done every time a new media was introduced, people said cinema and radio wou

last after the success of television, but they did, they evolved and are still successful, and radio is infact enjo

somewhat of resurgence as more and more people are listening to radio over the internet, as reported by the

Guardian (Guardian 2006). The same thing happened when the recordable tape cassette came out, people sthat it would kill music but as we have seen it hasn’t and is still successful today. Traditional media will involve

and become more interconnected with digital media, we have seen this in the likes of the BBC promoting the

of podcasts and there website whilst broadcasting on the traditional medias such as TV.

The other problem of digital media currently, and one that is holding it back is the fact there are so many diffe

formats and standards for a variety of aspects connected to digital media, there are different operating syste

and if you do something on one you might not be able to open it on the other, there are currently 3 different

standards for wi-fi, a,b and g. and on top of that there are two different security protocols for wi-fi. We have s

the success when manufacturers and software makers support just one format, look at the success of the MP

format, this is a format which is platform independent, software has been written for windows, OS X, Linux aneven hardware like mobile phones. Most manufactures tend to push only the technology they created and ar

that theirs is better whilst forgetting to leave out support for other technologies which are as equally as good,

example, in windows, there is the video format, .wmv, this is only playable in windows and so if you have a

different operating system you can’t view it. If digital media is to truly take the place of traditional media it nee

to have standards that are agreed and accepted by everyone. Printed material is not restricted to a certain fe

because they happen to have the write operating system; anyone who can see can read it. This is what digit

media needs to do if it is to truly take the place of traditional medias.

It would be interesting to do a report like this in 10 years time to see if the results and findings, in 10 years tim




will digital media have overcome its problems to enable it finally lead to the demise of traditional medias? On

time will tell.

So for now, has digital media lead to the decline of print and traditional medias? The answer is no.

B ac k t o t o p

death of print _ the decline of traditional media

Documents