You can find my term project for COM546 here: http://mediaevolutioncom546.wordpress.com/ , which includes the intro, final paper, the annotated bibliography, and the slideshare for my presentation in class.

Technological change in human communication profoundly affected journalistic activities. From print to digital, media evolution has facilitated an exponential variety in news reporting patterns, including its agenda setting, content collection, production and distribution. More substantially, it has redefined the relationship between journalists and audience, especially after the advent of digital media.

This paper provides an overview of media evolution from print, broadcast, to digital, and discusses the supervening social necessities behind adoption of each new technology.  It emphatically expatiates on how each media technology has affected traditional journalistic undertaking and fostered new forces of journalism: grassroots journalism.

The paper also predicted the future collaboration between professional and grassroots journalism and layouts the framework of a multi-dimensional convergence of old and digital newsrooms.

Being the “invisible hand” behind the broadcasting system, the China central government has the say on what content should be put on the Television, not only for government propaganda, but also for public educational and cultural purposes. Commercial and entertainment compose only small part of television. However, as China’s Market Economy booming, the transformation from government sponsored to self-support in mass communication also took place, either central or provincial or local television channels has to look for corporate advertising as their income. Losing government fund, their alternative to survive is providing programs that serve eyeball economy, which means to partly sacrifice principles of public television.

It is not appropriate to say, as the article points out, that the ultimate need of those channels is to “satisfy the major source of their income”, or the commercial television is going wild as it does in US by overloading political cynics, violence and sex. But the less restraint environment and the pursuit of profit inevitably result in their commercialization.

By “going commercial”, it is not possible for television channels in China to play excessive violence and extreme yellow journalism, or for big corporations to speak for respective political groups, but possible for them to make eyeball-catching and over-entertaining programs sponsored by big commercial brands.

The flood of various Pop Idol TV shows best typifies the phenomenon. Super Girl Voice Contest, generally described as the Chinese version of Pop Idol, held by Hunan Television in 2005, got popular all over the country with the rating dramatically going up from 0.5% to 4.6% and the market share increasing to 49%. The show then changed its name as Mengniu Yoghurt Super Girl Voice Contest after the company that sponsored the series. According to official statistics, the direct commercial profit from the show was over 766 million RMB. Ever since then, a bunch of provincial television channels in China launched their own Pop Idol or Talent Show programs. The commercial operations became even more violent in the manner of advertising, title sponsorship, message voting, etc. It is said that different commercial groups manipulated the mobile message voting process, but people just kept texting for their idols regardless of the “black case work” and high expenditure. Punditry questioned: is this just a television show or a plan to make money? Some educators even blamed these shows as “poison to youth” because they distorted teenagers’ aesthetic standard and outlook on life success.

To prevent television going commercially out of control, the article mentions government regulation. I agree that government’s macro-control would be effective. In the case above, SARFT eventually stepped in and issued rules governing such shows. The new regulations stated that the shows must not make a hubbub and should avoid vulgar or gross styles so as to protect the morals of the youth in China. These programs made adjustment in new season and the feedback from the public was surprisingly good.

In fact, SARFT has never been judged positively by the public because of its dictatorial manner in content censoring. But people in China also have faith in a moderate control on our television programs to maintain a healthy society. Being neither purely public nor commercial, it is even important for China television to achieve a good balance. Although central government power has been diluted, but its supervision still exists, and self-censor mechanism is also held by local television channels. I am not suggesting the power should use their strong hand to set agenda or filter content as it does always happen in today’s China, but to intervene when commercial operators are crossing the line by posing negative influence on the audience.

For the situation in US, I understand the First Amendment will not allow government’s direct intervention in broadcasting system, but I believe proper control on commercial television is necessary for the sake of public good. In this sense, “The Fallacy of the Two-Model Choice” is no longer tenable. We can find a positive “grey area” between complete “government propaganda” and “totally commercial”.

Additionally, it’s also not fair to only blame the television or corporate entities, the audience also need to form themselves a healthier taste in consuming television. As I know, some local channels in China ever tried “non-commercial period” which means only broadcasting art and science programs without any commercials. However, these programs were finally kicked out by low rating. In the article, the author argues there is a difference between what people say they want and what most actually do. This is very true reflected by my observation. We blame commercialized programs but we are not resistant to them. This mentality motivates commercial television and advertisers become more profit-driven.

To me, it is not an “either-or” choice for being commercial or public, audience call for quality programs but media want to sustain and make money. The key is how both needs can coexist in space where interaction, balance and counterbalance can be operated.

Technological change in communication profoundly affects how news is delivered. From print to digital, media evolution has facilitated an exponential growth in news patterns and freedom of our choice. Media, being not mere a carrier of information, also exerts a subtle influence on the activities and values of audience. Most importantly, the advent of new media has redefined the role of “journalists”. The project provides an overview of media evolution: from print, broadcast, to digital, and discuss how each media technology reshape news reporting and influence the general public.

Three most important developments in my timeline:

Mid-19th to 1990s

The invention of paper and printing facilitated the disruptive innovation in media history. The transmission of information went massive and became independent of geography. This was the point where journalism bred itself yet still in the style of storytelling.

The adoption of telegraph in journalism encouraged the booming of news agencies. The high cost of telegram motivated the shorter style of news reporting and its signal instability forced reporters to put core message on the top of every piece and decrease importance of information in subsequent paragraphs. We called this type of news reporting “inverted pyramid”, which was defined as a symbol of ripeness of journalism.

Broadcast media introduced visual and sound elements into news reporting, which accomplished diverse forms of journalism. Visual-audio technology enabled event recurrence and characterized media with the capability of conveying underlying messages over pure information data.

The popularization of broadcast media soon made its domination in media market and generated deep influence on the public. Over-exposure to mass media cultivated similar outlook of world, life, value and moral criteria among the public.  Big Media became the good player of agenda setting, or even “watch dog” in countries that have control on news content. The homogeneity process reinforced the “mainstream” and eliminated the dissent.  As passive receivers, audience gradually lose their initiative in expressing opinions, while on the other hand, the wild spread of information drove their need in variety and freedom of expression. The dilemma created tension between news producers and receivers, waiting for a trigger to rebuild their relationship.

Mid-1990s to 2009

The rise of Internet provided the trigger. The rise with the internet boom of the mid-1990s reconstructed the media market. The move to an online format exacerbated trends in traditional media. Facing a group of active audience, pure propaganda or any content that doesn’t cater their taste would be selectively eliminated. Old media’s made haste to build their online presence but meanwhile they’ve struggled to suppress the new media from threatening their leading status. New media’s concentrated on competing for emerging market. But the common goal for old and new media is to making up news reporting with network attributes: faster, shorter, entertaining, interactive, and easier to share.

At the same time, as the significant spin-off of new media, BBS, forum, and blog open the channel for general public; everyone has been equipped to be a creator and distributor.  Professional journalists are no longer the absolute transmitters, Big Media lost its power to lead or filter news reporting. Journalism is seen as more of a technically aided conversation, rather than a top-down monologue. However, when people are welcoming the benefit brought by new media, they are also facing the severe challenge: the credibility of participatory journalism.

2009 to future

Extended from Blogging, we’ve witnessed the endless emergence of “We-media” (or “Self-media, To be double checked), which refers to those more personal, grassroots, networking-based media such as Twitter, Facebook, Microblog, Podcasting, GroupMessage. As our social network expands, the effect of “We-media” reaches its geometric growth. They’ve become the great source of news reporting, and feedback from these media also dramatically affects journalism. Cases found within global scope (news of Bin Laden’s death, Yao Jiaxin’s trial) can illustrate the positive and negative power of “We-media”.

Which course theories best explain what has happened/might happen?

For the first development, I’ll use Christensen’s “disruptive innovation” and Winston’s “supervening social necessity” to explain why telegraph accomplished the birth of modern journalism and how TV and radio broadcasting had dominated the media market.

For the second development, I also find that Christensen’s “disruptive innovation” and Winston’s “supervening social necessity” could best explain why Internet’s replaced TV or radio as “mainstream” media. I’ll also adopt Winston’s “law of suppression of radical potential” to analyze old media’s over new media.

For the last development, I’ll use Christensen’s “sustaining innovation” to define the adoption of increasing forms of “We-media”. And the theory of “network effects” can perfectly imply that how social networking tools will potentially reshape news reporting.

How has your timeline (past/present/future) changed?

My timeline’s slightly changed with the second and last part. In the proposal, I didn’t mark off “we-media”, but now I assume they’ve become the most popular tools for citizen journalists and are strong enough to retroact to professional news reporting. Therefore, I choose to end the second part by 2009 and define the third part from 2009 to the time towards, because I think the climax of “We-media” is yet to come.

But after reading it again and again, I found these terms resonate a lot with our real life experience with new media. So I decided to find more examples to illustrate the concepts, and it proved my strategy was quite right. The discussion became very interesting when we connected those five principles to our own anecdotes. We echoed most to the fifth principle that how the logic of computer is encoding our culture. Here are some good points they made:

Corey: I no longer remember telephone numbers or do math in my head; I also don’t usually call friends (unless I need something) or read paper books. Tracking the way people’s habits change as they adopt different technologies would be a very fascinating field of study.

Mike: I’m very much interested in how computer logic is influencing cultural logic. At my company, we’re constantly driving towards an automated creative solution for businesses by employing technology to collect ideas from far and wide, i.e. crowdsourcing.

Lisa: The point about the influence of new media creating a situation of quantity over quality in news reporting and writing is something I definitely see every day – I feel like I read more than ever but take in only a little bit about everything.

Whether we admit it or not, our culture is being computerized. We read online content instead of paper book, we write email over mail, we use Twitter over blog because it’s faster, we talk via Facebook over phone, we shop online and we game online… Our habit, life style, business model, almost everything is going digital. What’s next?

Sometimes it’s scary when I feel myself getting addicted to new media innovations, I tried to step back, but find there’s no way back. How can we maintain our cultural essence when adopting new technology? This is definitely something we, as human beings, are obligated to figure out.

This article summarizes the history of online journalism, charting its rise with the internet boom of the mid-1990s and its subsequent decline and stabilization within the present news media market. It also extends an existing critique of hyper-commercial journalism by developing the arguments to treat the new institutions and conventions of the digital marketplace. It helps to scope the timeline of old media transforming to new media, and understand how this technology transformation affects journalism.

2.
Papacharissi, Z. (2003). [Review of the books Digital lournalism: emerging media and the changing horizons of journalism and News and the Net]. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator,59(4), 419-421. Retrieved from Ebscohost.com, University of Washington Library

By reviewing two books written on digital journalism, this article analyzes the definition of digital journalism and its impact on journalism. The analysis leads into the ethical implications of online news for the journalistic practice. The review emphasizes the advent of digital journalism and help to note that the practice of online news reporting calls for a combination of traditional journalism skills with computer literacy.

3.
Sweetser, K, Kaye, D, & Golan, G. (2008). Intermedia agenda setting in television, advertising, and blogs during the 2004 election. Mass Communication & Society, 11(2), 197-216. Retrieved from Ebscohost.com, University of Washington Library

This paper studies the case of 2004 presidential election. It examines whether the candidate controlled media can be successful in influencing the issue and news agenda of major TV networks. The article shows a good example of how strong the correlations would be between new forms of journalism (i.e. blogs) and the media agenda. It typifies how media evolution affects our news reporting.

4.
Jing, X.L. (2008). News from the people. Beijing Review, 51(27),18-19. Retrieved from Ebscohost.com, University of Washington Library

The article discusses the increasing use of the Internet by users in China. Using the case of Back Dorm Boys It states that podcasting in the country is dominated by video programs, with China’s video-sharing Web sites becoming the main stages for podcasters to express themselves. The article also discusses about grassroots journalism in China, the author lists several examples of how amateur reporters use digital innovations to create and distribute content, they build their reputation and eventually attract the professional media attention. All the examples in China, where news reporting was once limited by strict regulations, reveal a more substantial evolution in news production in digital age.

5.
Thurman, N. (2008). Forums for citizen journalists? Adoption of user generated content initiatives by online news media. New Media & Society, 10(1),135-197. Ebscohost.com, University of Washington Library

Technological innovations allow everyone participate in news reporting. This article discusses the phenomenon of citizen journalism which uses the www, and in particular blogs and wikis, to publish and promote independent news-related content. It argues that the mainstream news media should respond to the increase demand from readers for space to express their views. The article provides qualitative research interviews with editors and nine major British news websites to reveal the debates journalists are having about their changing roles, the challenges of meeting commercial expectations and ethical obligations. The article provides with case studies on the changes taking place in journalism’s relationship with its consumers.

6.
LANE, R. (2011). In the age of new media, who counts as a journalist?. News Media & the Law, 35(1),27-29. Ebscohost.com, University of Washington Library

The article focuses on the concept of news reporting and how it differs with the utilization of technology in creating expressive writing. The author revisits the definition of journalism and compares it with the process of disseminating information to the public through various media such as blog. Emphasis is also given to the encouragement to the courts in forming guidelines regarding the use of technology in gathering and publishing information. The article dig deeply in how technology reshapes content creating, while it also touch on how we should make control to online publishing by forming guidelines, pushing us to ponder how to dilute the negative effects brought by new media.

7.
DeJean, D. (2005). Technology might return journalism to its roots. Nieman Reports, 59(1),45-47. Ebscohost.com, University of Washington Library

The article reviews Robert W. McChesney’s Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media, and Dan Gillmor’s We the Media. It basically discusses how Internet will profoundly effects on what journalism is—how it is regarded, defined and practiced. The discussion shows today’s media industry is facing an amalgamation of journalists, newsmakers and the audience. Journalism is seen as more of a technically aided conversation, rather than a top-down monologue. The article also analyzes the consequences brought by this amalgamation. The author compare the views of McChesney and Gillmor, optimistic and pessimistic, holding that we should also notice the threats caused by technology, such as privacy, credibility, Internet access control, etc.

“The Principle of New Media” is a chapter from Lev Manovich’s book The Language of New Media. Lev Manovich intends to identify the differences between old media and new media by proposing “five principles of new media”, which are numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. Learning from Manovich’s thorough explanation and examples, I interpret these concepts as following:

• Numerical representation: all new media objects are composed of digital code, they exist as data, so they are numerical representations;
• Modularity: media elements, such as images, sounds, shapes, or behaviors are independent collections, they can be assembled into larger-scale objects but continue to maintain their separate identity.
• Automation: new media elements can be accessed, created, and manipulated automatically.
• Variability: new media object is not fixed but can exist in different versions.
• Transcoding: the logic of a computer can influence the traditional cultural logic of media.

Manovich states that these five principles are arranged in a logical order, by which principle 3-5 are dependent on principle 1-2, revealing that our culture are undergoing computerization.

According to Manovich, the key difference between old and new media is that new media is programmable. The concept of “computerization” is demonstrated in the five principles. Text, image, sound, and the alike media elements can all be digitalized. The digital elements can be independently used and modified, or combined to a large media object. In Photoshop, for example, the concept of “modularity” is most embodied by “layers”: a single image can be composed of many layers, each of which can be treated as an entirely independent and separate entity. By using all the computer programs, users create or modify media objects by templates or algorithms. So Manovich thinks “human intentionally can be removed from the creative process”. But the same time they can also customize their own content, Manovich calls this “variability”, allowed by new media which is not in “hardwire” fixed structure as old media. One example of variability is what we know as “hyperlink”, allowing users to take different path to different content. The media become interactive with the users and value individuality over conformity.

At last, Manovich stresses on the “more ‘deep’ and far reaching” principle of new media: transcoding. In his view, this is the most substantial consequence of media’s computerization, which not only affects human beings on the computer layer, but also on the cultural layer. The influence on cultural layer is the broader sense of transcoding. By adopting more new media innovations, our minds are transformed by the logic of the computer. This logic has reshaped how we think about and represent ourselves.

All the new media approaches mentioned in Manovich’s five principles are definitely the disruptive innovations defined by Christensen. Old media give way to new technologies in areas of content production and distribution. Relate to my term project, I see from the perspective that how these five principles of new media affect news production and distribution. When media elements become digitalized, when the Internet allows hypermedia, news content’s become extremely accessible and consumable, and easier to cultivate than before. Online news reporting differentiates from print and broadcast media by characterizing itself as faster, effective, multimedia, and interactive. One substantial change is the interconverting between newsmakers and audience. “Variability” and “automation” allows user-generated content, which leads to the boom of grassroots journalism. Besides, news agenda is no longer set by Big Media when users can freely choose whatever they are interested in by using various webpage manipulaters.

The tools and styles in media are computerized, but are our ways of thinking changing in the same way? The profound implication of this transformation lies in its influence on human culture. As Manovich observes that “the logic of a computer can be expected to significant influence on the traditional cultural logic of media”. News reporting gets richer in amount but poorer in depth; the creative energy of the writer and editor goes into the selection and sequencing of elements rather than into original design; the media value become super utilitarianism and market-oriented. What’s the next? I would like to discuss with my classmate on this perspective, which is more fundamental in new media quality.

To sum up, this chapter by Manovich is not only clear in structure, abundant in examples, but also generates new insights that help people to explore new media in both technological and philosophical levels.

Discussion:

1. Among these five principles, what relate most to your personal experience?
2. How would you address “the logic of computer can influence on cultural logic in media”? Any examples?
3. What will be the consequences of this “transcoding”?

For grassroots journalists, what will be the most powerful gadget in the toolkit?

In his book We the Media: Grassroots, Journalism by the People, For the People, Dan Gillmor discusses about journalism’s transformation from a 20^th century mass media structure to something profoundly more grassroots and democratic. Gillmor asserts that “Tomorrow’s news reporting and production will be more of a conversation, or a seminar.” People who lead this infinite conversation, as he predicts, will be “grassroots journalists”, those who turned from readers to reporters publishing in real time to audience via the Internet.

Gillmor lays out a list of new technology tools that grassroots journalists love to use, including email, forum, weblog, WIKI, SMS, P2P, RSS and other innovations allowing them to search for, organize and showcase information they’ve discovered. While as a pioneer and popular weblog writer himself, Gillmor lays greater stress on how weblog creates an online ecosystem where anyone can publish and read, get feedback comments and audience discussions. The bloggers can either offer punditry in specialized areas or touch on gamut of topics and styles. To Gillmor, the best individual blogs are written by human beings with genuine human passion. He also quotes from Jay Rosen to position the role of blog in journalism:” Blogs are an extremely democratic form of journalism.”

Gillmor expatiates on how blog can influence business entities and celebrities in the book. However, being a previous professional reporter and an enthusiastic blogger myself, I’m more interested in the following issues: will blog become a key constituent that redefines who journalists are? Will blog take place of Big Media and reshape our news reporting? Luckily, Gillmor elaborates some directions for us with a bunch of case studies.

In the case of local community news, he encourages “’citizen-reporting’ by people who want to cover some broadly defined aspect of community life”, because Big Media can’t cover every single event going on. One way suggested is to invite members of the community to create blogs for that purpose. The websites of Big Media, in this case the newspaper, would monitor what’s been written and point from their sites to various blogs on these topics. This reminds me of my previous employer in China, a local news website. We host our own blog service. Every day, the blog editors will go through most of the posts, any one being a good supplement or as qualified as an official piece of news reporting will be picked out and reposted onto the news site. And the blogger will get paid for the article. In fact, many newspapers and TV stations are adopting the same policy by creating blogs on their online presence and collect resource from “citizen journalists”. Some of the Big Media, as Gillmor mentions in the book, even sell advertising on the blogs under the writers’ permission.

It’s not difficult to see that blog, as representative form of participatory journalism, will take up considerable proportion in the future. “An audience that participated in the journalistic process is more demanding than passive consumers of news.” Gillmor’s words reassure the fact that the stereotype for “journalist” is no longer tenable. The era of grassroots journalism implies a broader of definition of journalist and a more flexible reader-oriented style of news reporting.

According to an incomplete statistics, the amount of blog users worldwide has broken over 70 million. The number is still going, together with blog’s spin-offs. Sina.com, the largest Chinese web portal that takes lead in blog service, has launched Sina Weibo, a Chinese Microblogging site similar to Twitter in 2009. Now Weibo has more than 100 million users.Former audiences have substantially changed from mere consumers to active news creators.

Yes, the trend is exciting, but it never saves pains on the shifting process. Are we losing credibility by adopting more multidirectional journalism? How can we tell trolls and spins from genuine posts among blog feeds? Gillmor also talks about the question of trust in this book. He believes that “no matter which tools and technologies we embrace, we must maintain core principles of journalism, including fairness, accuracy, and thoroughness. These are not afterthoughts. They are essential if professional journalism expects to survive.” I am in entire endorsement with Gillmor on this point. So I insist that editors are still needed when Big Media are pulling personal blog posts to their websites. They don’t necessarily need to be the “great fire wall” style filters or censors, but at least eligible for verifying the facts and looking for what’s missing in a story. And there is a new task for old journalists, as Gillmor reminds us, to help the growing amateurs understand and value ethics, the importance of serving the public trust, and professionalism. While for some high-profile blogs, reputation is not a problem, it’s also time for those bloggers to match depth to the content as professional journalists do.

Apart from ethic issues, the force of government authority, centralization and legal restrictions are slowing the advances grassroots journalism’s made, for example, content censoring, even towards personal blog posts, is still applied in some countries. Gillmor believes the clampdown will finally be defeated by technology innovation and democratic development, to which I hold the same view. But I also suggest a moderate control on this “explosion of conversation” before it eventually gets ethically and legally mature, of course this is where it’s heading.

Reference:

Gillmor. D. (2004). We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Mdedia, Inc.

Dong. X.F., (June 1, 2005). We the Media: A Genuine Revolution of New Media. Retrieved from http://biz.163.com/05/0601/11/1L5IGLNS00021E8G.html

 “Managers must beware of ignoring new technologies that don’t initially meet the need of their mainstream customers.” Christensen encourages a consciousness of advance among companies. Many successful companies fail to make disruptive technology investment that customers of the future will demand, Christensen points out the reason of this phenomenon “lies at the heart of the paradox: leading companies succumb to one of the most popular, and valuable, management dogmas. They stay close to their customers”. So “when the customers reject a new technology, companies will listen to them but in the end will also be hurt by the technology their customers let them ignore.” he writes.

 The example of Seagate and 3.5-inch drive is a very persuasive one. Small start-up catches the wave while big company loses the game because they underestimate the potential of a disruptive innovation. Comparatively speaking, big companies are more likely to face the paradox since they have more restrictions and concerns when deciding to access a new technology. Customers’ needs and whether it’s profitable in the market seem to be the prerequisites.

 So I wonder, is there a method to help big companies work out the paradox? How can they not miss the wave but be less risky to launch the innovations despite customer’s attitudes? Christensen provides answers in this article. He teaches the companies to spot and cultivate disruptive technologies by executing five steps: determine whether the technology is disruptive or sustaining; define the strategic significance of it; locate the initial market for it; place responsibility for building a disruptive technology business in an independent organization; keep the organization independent.

I think this “five-step principle” would relieve the anxiety of many companies. It focuses more on the strategic analysis of technology itself than temporary customer’s needs and market compatibility. Christensen concludes: “The key is to manage strategically important disruptive technologies in an organizational context where small orders create energy, where fast low-cost forays into ill-defined market are possible, and where overhead is low enough to permit profit even in emerging markets.”

Google, as the leader innovator in the industry, launched the “20 percent time” campaign, meaning all developers can use 20 percent of their time per day to work on side projects. This could be a fair example for “place responsibility for building a disruptive technology business in an independent organization”. Here, this independent organization refers to single or a team of developers. They can use the free time to create experimental projects, which might later become disruptive innovations. This may not be proved the most effective approach, but it generates possibilities to drive innovation.

Here’s one more personal example. As a customer being conservative to fancy new technology, I hate companies being way ahead of my current needs and kick out all the old technology that already makes me comfortable. For example, there had been a long time that I stubbornly stick to using a regular phone and resist smartphones. I believed that a cellphone’s job was to function extremely well in telephone, text message and that’s all. I could do other fancy stuff in my computer and I didn’t want to mess myself up by tons of features in a smart phone. As far as I know, a large group of people held the same opinion as I did at that time. So if Apple stands by customers like us, there would be no cellphone revolution brought by iPhone. My first smart phone came to me in Oct 2010, soon after I arrived in US. I was not willing to use it at all in the beginning and hardly got myself used to the touch screen. But gradually I found it was not as scary as I assumed, and change my stereotying of smart phone. It’s not only fancy in appearance, but user friendly and compatible to almost all the popular applications. My life’s getting easier with the help of at-hand utilities and my online activities become more convenient. I am so surprised to see how iPhone touches upon the technologies that I’m unconsciously in need of from a cellphone.

My experience make me realize that companies should not just playing the role of a servant, but also a guide and educator, who awakes the potential call inside customers for a new technology, help them to adopt that technology which they may reject at the first. As I see it, the process of conquering the stubborn customers is also the process of building their higher loyalty, because once they succumb to the product (like I’m with iPhone), they are not easily change to other brands that access to this new technology later on. So companies should not miss the best timing to adopt a promising technology which might grab the emerging market by an early entry.

From print, broadcast to digital, technology transforms the media of news reporting, now the general public have faster and easier accesses to almost any content displayed by word, image, sound and video. In addition to display methods, the evolution of news media also affects a great deal on news reporting particularly with the rise of Internet. The old pattern of agenda setting, content preference, and audience engagement has been substantially reshaped in this evolution.

Statement of intent

This paper will document the evolution of news media, including histories of newspapers, magazines , radio, TV and more recently the Internet and mobile.

Along with the technology development, the philosophy of news reporting is also undergoing a series of challenges, especially when digital media boom at mid-1990s. Why is print media encountering a subsequent decline? Is it necessarily the case that news would be more attractive when put online no matter of the style they are presented? How to adopt the right content display style on the right news media? How to switch from a media-oriented mode to an audience-oriented mode? How to make full use of digital media in terms of engaging the audience? The paper will focus a little bit on addressing the impact of digital technology on journalism and all the questions will be elaborated by sufficient cases.

I would intentionally use examples from China, where the change of news reporting is more revolutionary because of its long dominating “government propaganda” style.

I set my “past” from early 1900s to late 1990s: transformation from print to broadcast based media;

the “present” from 1990s to 2009: Internet, mobile forms take over the roles and user-generated content becomes part of the journalistic content;

the “future” since 2010: rich media, which is a comprehensive integration of print, audio, video, and IM interaction with receivers.

References:

Ben, Scott. (2005). A Contemporary History of Digital Journalism. Television & New Media, 6(1), 89-126. Retrieved from Ebscohost.com.

Annotation:

This article documents the history of online journalism, charting its rise with the internet boom of the mid-1990s and its subsequent decline and stabilization within the present newsmedia market. This history is situated within the larger trajectories of contemporary journalism,paying particular attention to changes in the existing political economic structure of theindustry as it assumes digital form, the resultant variations in content and presentation, andthe implications for the health of the free press. In the final analysis, this article argues that themove to an online format has exacerbated negative trends that have dogged print journalismfor decades. It also extends an existing critique of hyper-commercial journalism bydeveloping the arguments to treat the new institutions and conventions of the digitalmarketplace.