The Classical Old Media / New Media Debate

Ask anyone as to what was the most used form of media for 2008, and the chances are that most would come up with the answer: “The Internet”. Ask them to be more specific and they might go on to list social networking sites, search engines, news websites, and blogs etc., but not necessarily in that order. These responses of course are dependent on the demographic that the person belongs to. I could probably go a step ahead and postulate that only the technology-savvy will think that this is not only the way the water flows but that we’ve already been flooded in. Ask the same question of someone from the geriatric population, and except for the some outliers like the 102 year old Ivy Bean (the oldest member on facebook) you would probably hear answers like TV news, newspapers, radio etc.
Whoever thought that the old media is out and the new media is in? Have newspapers started closing shop? Well, most of them have reinvented themselves and gone online but they haven’t stopped publishing their regular paper version. According to a survey (results below) the old media is still kicking up a storm. There has been some minor decline in usage over a couple of years but it’s still not significant enough for us to go and put an insert for them in the obituaries section of an online newspaper.

The survey results are quite evident and I won’t dwell on the individual numbers. I’d rather make some pointers which may or may not be agreeable to all and in the process invite some discussions from readers of this post.
Will the internet completely replace all other forms of media in the near future? Probably not! I see the internet only supplementing the other forms of media I might enjoy spending time in the morning with the print version of a popular national newspaper, but for news updates during the day, I would invariably turn either to a television or the online news websites for any further developments.
They say that for changes to be significant there have to be disruptive forces at work. The only way I can see the new media completely replacing the old is when both of the following happen:
We run out of trees for manufacturing paper and recycled paper cannot be recycled anymore.
Governments ban the use of television to save electricity and in the process go-green nationwide. They can promote usage of energy-efficient laptops in every household along with a high-speed broadband connection.
Television stations will start broadcasting over the net. Newspapers will offer online viewing of a print version (that was never printed) along with the latest updates. We reduce our carbon footprint and will be more socially networked than we ever were before.
Any guesses if it will ever come to this?

The Maturity Complex

Some 26years ago, my parents bought a television for the first time. We were pioneers. We were one of the few homes that had the good fortune of having a television at home and it was always fun to have neighbors and their household help come over to watch specific programs that were being aired. There were weekly movies, and daily programming aired by the local doordarshan station, or the programs aired at night from the nation's capital. The news broadcast was something I would grudgingly bear with, because I wanted to watch the programming that followed. I was all of 8 - 10 years old. But I remember, when the elders gathered around, one of the topics of discussion would be the news, the news reader on TV, and the way the news was delivered. Unfortunately today, we don't really care about all of that. What we keep asking for is a mature news broadcaster. And again there is this constant comparison with foreign news channels. I have lived abroad for over seven and a half years and this problem of so called maturity is more about passing the buck than accepting the fact that "what you see is what you really want".
News channels have to get viewership and every news channel, has its very specific target audience. When you target a section of society, you have to cater to what they want. Once when watching Star News at a friend's house in London, I couldn't stop laughing - I hadn't seen Star News in a long time and the latest breaking news on that channel was "Bipasha pe hamla" - and in true movie style with special effects of the camera zooming in and out multiple times - "Bipasha pe hamla" being said with the echo sound effect - I immediately took notice - and guess what some fan threw a piece of tissue paper at her which hit her on her face - I'm sure it did a lot of damage to her sensitive skin and probably wiped off a little of the make-up on her face - but was it something you could term as an "Attack"? It was probably some one who was star struck that couldn't get close enough - he/she decided to kiss a tissue paper and throw it at her face- and blame her reflexes for not ducking or avoiding it. Anyway, that said - I soon realized the kind of news that was delivered on a daily basis on that channel. It catered to a target audience that liked such news items. An audience that demanded that news be presented in a theatrical and overly dramatised fashion. If Star News caters to this audience, why is the rest of the population complaining that the news media is immature? The fact that they can get this section of people to watch their channel, helps companies target specific products to these people too via their commercials.
On the flip side, if all the news channels met the standards of being what we're calling "mature", it would make it difficult for those news channels to survive commercially. Each news channel serves a specific need and they need to differentiate themselves based on what they offer. It could be because they use well known anchors or just sensationalism.
The so called maturity of the International counterparts is quite misplaced. What we're probably comparing it with, is what these news channels broadcast in India. If you lived in the US and watched CBS / ABC / NBC / CNN / Fox or even Barbara Walters and 20/20 OR watch the regular news broadcasts of the BBC / ITV / Channel 4 / Five in London - You will realize that they cater to specific audiences too. Obviously, what the local market wants in those countries is different from what the local market wants in India. Its a different culture. The way we live our lives in India is different from the west. Instead of generalizing, what we should compare is specific parameters on which the quality of the news broadcast can be compared on an equal footing.
Is there a problem with the production quality or a problem with the news reader's diction or is it a problem with the sets that are used? News content, presentation, sensationalization etc., are market dependent and cannot be used to rate the maturity of the industry.
Maybe we should wonder why our audiences are immature - but immaturity is very relative.



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