So who will pay for journalism?
Without thinking about it, most people would answer that consumers and readers are the people paying for journalism. They think literally and single-mindedly, that readers pay for newspapers and that's how the journalism industry thrives. To a certain extent, yes, consumers make up some portion of journalism's revenue but they don't make up the bulk of it. Can you imagine trying to make a profit from selling A THICK WAD of papers filled with news for a measly 90 cents? I don't think so.
The correct answer would be advertisers; they are the ones keeping the journalism industry afloat. But the trend of traditional journalism moving onto the online medium is worrying for the journalism industry as the price for advertising space on the net is significantly cheaper than paying for space on print. Sure, advertisers will move where the readership is but would it be enough to cover the cost of keeping the journalism industry alive?
There are currently no substantial solution to this problem, but the worrying belief that journalism will die out is unfounded. One of the presenters for this topic, Benjamin Chung, said "Journalism is not dying out, it's the media,"; which I strongly agree with. Print journalism is still thriving, it's just that with consumers being more technology-savvy and wanting immediacy of news, they're turning to the world wide web for their news fix.
If online news provider are worried about the decreased advertising revenue, there are ways of recuperating part of the loss. One of them would be adopting a paywall model in which consumers are needed to pay a subscription fee before getting full and unlimited access to the news site.
So in the end, if you think about it, the same two groups are still paying for journalism despite the shift to an online medium. There are still advertisers paying for space, and consumers are still paying for content. Also, there is still the fact that print journalism is still pretty much alive and kicking and it's not dying out soon. In fact, traditional papers who set up online versions of their papers are gaining even more readership on top of their regular readers. One can assume that they're getting money from both sides of the field, yes? Lucky them then.
Without thinking about it, most people would answer that consumers and readers are the people paying for journalism. They think literally and single-mindedly, that readers pay for newspapers and that's how the journalism industry thrives. To a certain extent, yes, consumers make up some portion of journalism's revenue but they don't make up the bulk of it. Can you imagine trying to make a profit from selling A THICK WAD of papers filled with news for a measly 90 cents? I don't think so.
The correct answer would be advertisers; they are the ones keeping the journalism industry afloat. But the trend of traditional journalism moving onto the online medium is worrying for the journalism industry as the price for advertising space on the net is significantly cheaper than paying for space on print. Sure, advertisers will move where the readership is but would it be enough to cover the cost of keeping the journalism industry alive?
There are currently no substantial solution to this problem, but the worrying belief that journalism will die out is unfounded. One of the presenters for this topic, Benjamin Chung, said "Journalism is not dying out, it's the media,"; which I strongly agree with. Print journalism is still thriving, it's just that with consumers being more technology-savvy and wanting immediacy of news, they're turning to the world wide web for their news fix.
If online news provider are worried about the decreased advertising revenue, there are ways of recuperating part of the loss. One of them would be adopting a paywall model in which consumers are needed to pay a subscription fee before getting full and unlimited access to the news site.
So in the end, if you think about it, the same two groups are still paying for journalism despite the shift to an online medium. There are still advertisers paying for space, and consumers are still paying for content. Also, there is still the fact that print journalism is still pretty much alive and kicking and it's not dying out soon. In fact, traditional papers who set up online versions of their papers are gaining even more readership on top of their regular readers. One can assume that they're getting money from both sides of the field, yes? Lucky them then.
