Hot from the speaker's dais to you! Earlier this week a colleague of ours, Dr Jim Macnamara delivered a presentation at the PRIA National Conference on the changing face of the media. Here's the bite size version for your viewing pleasure.
Current media
Newspaper circulation is falling. TV viewing audiences are falling. Internet usage is rising rapidly – particularly among younger demographics. In short, people are going to more and different places for their news and information.
Audiences are becoming increasingly sceptical and resistant towards traditional media. Forrester Research in 2006 reported that people today most trust friends, family, and consumer opinions posted online. (Also see The Edelman Trust Barometer for similar results)
Traditional media have lost credibility. However, it is important to exaggerate changes. A Lexis Nexis survey in Oct 2006 found 52% of people still rely on and trust traditional media, with newspapers remain ‘media of reference’ in most cases.
Traditional or mainstream media are not standing still, increasingly using Web 2.0 with interactive content and citizen journalist content. A quick look at the major media groups/categories in Australia:
Fairfax:
- Integrating newsrooms for print and online
- 50 multimedia journalists – reporters increasingly file video
- 4 million video views in June – eg. Pasher Baulka and NSW storms
- Publishing first online – features, investigative & interviews in paper eds
- More specialisation – eg. liftouts targeted at specific audience
- More Internet only ‘newspapers’ – eg. Brisbanetimes – Perth next.
News Limited:
- Purchased MySpace – delivers 170 million readers for advertising, music, film, etc – reaching out to younger audience – cross-platform delivery of content;
- MX will roll out to other cities;
- Dow Jones acquisition provides 2.7 million paying subscribers. Average income of $170K. Digitisation and globalisation in one deal. Will deliver content for new business channel on FOX.
TV:
- Moving further to ‘infotainment’ – eg. Sunrise
- Cross-platform programs such as Big Brother (broadcast FTA and Internet)
- Network / FTA TV’s role in breaking news under challenge
- But TV is fighting back – new news formats emerging – eg. ABC in the US introduced Webcast news and ‘news diary’ featuring reporter’s using handycams and casual personal Web 2.0 type reporting
- Pay TV growing – particularly for sport. Becoming more interactive; SKY leading in breaking news
Radio:
- Both challenged by and using podcasting.
ABC:
- Evolving and investing substantially in online – 24 million online page views of news; podcasts & vodcasts
New Media
Blogs and they are no longer an alternative or fringe media for two reasons:
- Mainstream industries are fast adopting blogs – not just as e-newsletters but for authentic, two-way conversations with their stakeholders
- Corporate blog topics are broadening – no longer just written by the CEO on corporate matters. They are being used at many levels to engage with specific communities on specific issues. For instance, Microsoft and Sun have several thousand bloggers each;
- Interest in best practices is growing - Cymfony & Porter Novelli found that a third of respondents have a corporate blog and that 89% agreed the blogs would grow in importance over the next 3 years.
- The fear factor is declining as positive results are gained - of 42% of companies which said a blog post that had impacted the company, over 90% said the impact was positive. 75% said blogs had achieved their goals of increased media coverage, Web site traffic and sales leads
- Social media can be a source of market insight – Forrester reported that blogs & other social media a major source of consumer and market insight - allow us to monitor word of mouth (and word of mouse) in real time at low cost.
Prosumers are here
An example of today’s PROSUMER, a term coined by futurologist Alvin Toffler in his 1980 book The Third Wave:
- She is well-educated and works in a professional job.
- First thing she does in the morning is check her MySpace page. Then checks her e-mail on her PDA while she enjoys a cup of herbal tea.
- On way to office, listens to some music downloaded from i-Tunes and a podcast of an interview.
- At the office, does the rest of her e-mail on her PC, where her RSS feeds have automatically downloaded news headlines from several sources and blogs. Sees some blogs which catch her interest, so she posts comments – right under the Google Ads. And she writes a quick post to her own blog.
- One blog links her to a YouTube video which she takes a quick look at. And she may check out Facebook as well to look up a friend.
- At lunch she buys a glossy printed magazine from a newsstand and pores over it while she waits for her friends at a café. Then, when they arrive, she catches up on the gossip … tips on clothes, make-up, the best hairdressers in town and the coolest bands mainly from them. For more serious stuff, she still listens to her mum – except for advice on cars for which she turns to her brother who she calls regularly on Skype.
- Before she leaves the office she Googles to find a product she wants to buy as a gift and then buys it online through e-Bay – or perhaps Amazon.com.
- Then meets her boyfriend after work for a drink and a movie – along with the entertainment, she sees cinema advertising and undoubtedly views product placement.
- When she gets home around 11, she flicks on the TV for some late-night relaxation.
- Also … inevitably been exposed to billboards; bus-sides; street signs; conversations with people at work and elsewhere; and observations.
- Also produced and distributed information and content in blogs and could well distribute photographs taken on her camera phone, video clips via YouTube, or podcast.
What does all this mean for an organisation trying to communicate?
- Speed of the news cycle is increasing rapidly. Stories will be increasingly broken online.
- Response will be have to be even faster & go to right channels.
- Print newspapers will focus more on features, interviews and special topic lift-outs – opportunities for longer in-depth stories.
- Magazines increasingly niche.
- Media will rely more & more on citizen journalists. Prosumers who both produce & consume will increasingly communicate directly through new forms of media.
- The ‘gatekeeper’ role of editors declining – although not disappearing (eg. moderators in some blogs).
- Internet will continue to grow. PWC reports online advertising will reach $5.28 billion by 2010 - more than on free-to-air TV.
Opportunities
- People are spending more time listening, watching and engaging with news and information.
- There are more channels available. There are fewer ‘gatekeepers’ in channels (although this is seen as a mixed blessing by some ) and direct channels = more opportunities to get your message out.
Challenges
- We need an expanding range of targeted information on a number of platforms. And we need a changing range of skills and fundamental shifts in approach – authenticity; conversations; no longer the control paradigm. Create relationships – perhaps in this PR will find its true self and its raison d’etre.
Specifically for public relations, there is a need for:
- New media relations techniques – eg. to deal with bloggers. Can’t phone them, e-mail them and they don’t take press release or come to news conferences;
- New media monitoring and analysis services are required to cover blogs, social media sites, podcasts, and so on;
- New media metrics are needed – for instance to identify influential blogs – because you can’t look up a circulation figure;
- New crisis management skills – even more speed of response and wider environmental scanning – eg. Australian soldiers playing with guns shown on YouTube;
- Even training skills – if executives in your organisation are going to blog, they need guidelines and coaching on how to write for blogs (i.e. new opportunities)
- And you will need vision and courage to step away from the control paradigm of information dissemination that has dominated advertising and PR to engage in true two-way communication – engaging with audiences, building relationships which requires openness, authenticity and risk – but with huge potential benefits.
Dr Jim
Macnamara is the Group Research Director, Media Monitors-CARMA Asia Pacific and a Professor of Public Communication, University of Technology Sydney.
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