The Web Changes News – And PR – Forever

Introduction

Since the beginning of time humans have engaged in different forms of communication and its the medium of communication that we use, has changed. We started with gestures and developed verbal communication and then we learned to write. We have communicated the same way every time, the sender sends the information through a medium to the receiver. Within the last few years with the developments in digital communication, the medium for delivering news has shifted from printed news to online news. This has brought a major transformation in news paper sales firstly and it has drastically changed the way public relations management is controlled. People now have come to expect that along with an old media approach, that their will also be a new media approach. Many people would be of the opinion that the old style media, for example, a press release to a newspaper company for publication via print is dated. While I would agree some what with this, being a digital native myself, I still would firmly believe that we as PR practitioners should never rule it out completely because there is still a reliance on these means of communication to a certain demograph of people.

How ‘new’ media differs from ‘old’ media

The Internet in recent years has brought a revolution in how we communicate, which has summoned a transformation in how Public Relations is practiced. Before there was a heavy reliance in the print media press release and now we are seeing a steady shift to online press releases. With a rapid change in technology and digitisation, it initiated a shift where people are now currently moving away from printed text to digital text for news, learning and communication. PR practitioners now need to adapt their skill sets to be more relatable to the shift in the newer digital trends. Rupert Murdock in 2005 addressed the American Society of News Paper editors in Washington DC and tried to convince people, that the ‘traditional’ media, or as we know it now, ‘old’ media, is changing as people are now using different means of gathering news. (Guardian, 2005) 

“We need to realise that the next generation of people accessing news and information, whether from newspapers or any other source, have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from, and who they will get it from”.

When Murdock put his voice forward in 2005, he was initially laughed at by his peers. Now 10 years later, the print media has succumbed to the demand for online news. Every paper available in shop shelves now have an online version for free or you can avail of a subscription online. People don’t just want to rely on one source of information when they are looking at the news. A lot of this could be due to the cynical nature of people nowadays, but is also to do with the fact that people want more opinions and versions of the same story, particularly if its of interest.

“What is happening is, in short, a revolution in the way young people are accessing news. They don’t want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don’t want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what’s important. And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don’t want news presented as gospel’ – (Rupert Murdock, 2005)

Carnegie carried out a report on how there is a definite migration of old media to new media between the ages of 18-34 on how people access news. The dramatic shift in how young people access the news raises a question about how the scale and the flow of information will interact in the years ahead. (Carnegie 2015) The report showed that in 2005, there were already trends to show where old media news was headed. By using internet portal sites, our phones, tablets, we are now able to source news other way than just print news papers. We can access, blogs, forums, news websites and social media. Each of these devices and functions have challenged the way we access information and process it. It challenges the way traditional media and its historic function and puts to question where traditional news media will be in the future. It’s also posed a challenge to who produces new. Citizen journalism, blogging sites are changing the nature of how we as PR practitioners manage our clients reputation and because of this, we are now using these tools too, to come before possible issues online.

The paradox between how new media is now used rather than the old types of media, is that, it was the digital immigrants who invented these technologies, but its the digital natives, who don’t see restrictions with new media uses are developing the mediums in which we view media. People born from the early 2000 on are described as the digital natives and the generation before are the digital immigrants.

Jeff De Graff, author and journalist for the Huffington post describes digital natives as Free agents:

‘ They view the world horizontally, in equalitarian terms. Rather than dividing the world into hierarchies, they see everyone as existing on an equal level. They embrace the benefits of sharing things and ideas with each other and, in doing so, they cross boundaries. They are driven by values. For this reason, many of them are distrustful of traditional cultural and social institutions: marriage, religion, government. In opting out of these institutions, they have declared themselves micro segments of one — free agents.’

In 2005 when Murdock addressed the American Society of News Paper editors, he received an aggressive response. Digital natives imagine a world with minimal institutional structure and are more open to diversity in cultures and backgrounds. PR practitioners who are still learning new technologies have an advantage now where they can learn from the digital natives and keep up with the new trends in PR and their clients reputation.

It is the opinion of Alyshia Kisor-Madlem, blogger and journalist, that it really comes down to numbers when you think about how the web has changed news today. For example, the traditional print media for the New York Times has a circulation of 2 million copies, while the online version has over 15 million visitors a month. (Blastmedia, 2012) .

I believe that while printed or old media still remains important and will do for at least the next 10 years, newspaper companies should be preparing for and gearing towards having a smaller printing demo graph and working on their online presence and persona. PR partitioners currently depend on old media trends like newspapers and radio to manage their clients retains with the mass public, but they also now have to include digital and social marketing services. Renatta Murphy, the managing director of Cameo Communications in Cork, Ireland, has been quoted saying that ‘If for example, if The Examiner in Cork, stopped or shut down, it would affect all Cork PR Practitioners work. It would make Clients divert their business to a part of the country where their was a large-scale news print’. (PR talk, 24.03.2015) I believe that currently, today businesses should and still do hold a lot of value in the old styles of media, but for a PR partitioner, it does depend on who you’re representing and what they need you for. Roderick Udo, event manager for Appelpop festival also said during his presentation for The Art of The event seminar in 2015, that while there is now a heavy reliance on social media to promote and inform members of the public events, you should never underestimate the power of traditional media like the press releases, articles in magazines and news papers as the target market will always have access to these forms of media. I do believe that it had added to the PR practitioners job, but I believe it has enhanced it. You can reach all types of audiences with editorials online and also with physical print copies from media sources.

Conor Barron, the digital Marketing executive for Bord Gais Energy, wanted to promote the Bord Gais energy Theater to a younger audience, and the vast majority of this PR awareness campaign was mainly promoted by new media means like the use of twitter, hashtags and google + hangout to appeal to the target market it was trying to reach. (The Art of The event seminar, 2015). The type of media predominantly used for this campaign was new media, if this campaign was carried out by traditional means of media, it would not have carried over the same effect as it simply would not have reached the necessary target market.

The impact of the web on traditional mass media

It used to be the case that with ‘old’ media, almost everybody in your locality would get their news from a few select newspapers, radio stations or television channels, and so we as PR practitioners knew which channels to use to reach the general public. The PR profession had mastered communicating through traditional media but the emergence of the web meant the tools and tactics we used to reach our publics had to be developed quickly or we would be left behind.

New media and communication technologies have had a noticeable impact on public relations, in particular how organisations are able to communicate with their multiple publics. A multitude of studies have examined the phenomenon of social media, and its impact on different types of organisations. (PRSA,2014).

Statistics from pew-internet show Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Linked’In. With multi platform use of social media, which is regarded as new media, on the rise, it’s now more important than ever for PR practitioners to adapt to using new media as well as the old media styles. Pew surveys showed that 52% of online adults now use two or more social media sites which is a significant increase from 2013 when it stood at 42%. It also showed that more than half of all online adults 65 and older (56%) use Facebook. This statistic represents 31% of all seniors that took part in the survey. Another statistic to take from their survey is that roughly half of the internet using young adults from the age of 18-29 use instagram and 49% of Instagram users use it daily.

Dustin W Supa, performed a qualitative and insightful study of how social media, otherwise known as new media, has impacted the PR practitioners job. The responses he received from interviewing 34 practitioners showed that many practitioners found that it gave them an advantageous approach to PR and carrying out their jobs and also found it easier to find out information on journalists. They also stated that their relationships with journalists have become more personal. The question asked, that provoked such a strong response was: “What impact has social media had on the media relations function of public relations?”(PRSA, 2014)

One practitioner responded:

“Definitely…it’s an opportunity to talk with reporters and establish a relationship in a less formal way. You can talk with them about anything from the weather, to a mutual favorite sport to the industry they cover. You can show them love by retweeting an article they wrote. Some reporters even tweet media opportunities that you can respond to right then and there…Overall, social media helps you see what kind of person a reporter is. It humanizes them, which in my opinion, makes it easier to talk with them when it comes to client work.”

The nature of new media also impacts news and how we consume it. Johanna Blakley gave a ted talk on how we are targeted by media and marketers and an interesting point I took from the video was that from their research carried out, it was females that are predominately social media networkers,  that use new media interfaces. Media companies believe that if you fall within certain categories that you are predictable in certain ways. Online media has also shifted the way that we are now demo graphed by media companies and we are much more refined as individuals now because of this. Traditional media demographics have changed. The TED talk is roughly 8 minutes long and below the video I took a few screen grabs of statics and their times on the video.

Reference Section:

• http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/apr/14/citynews.newmedia – Date accessed 15/03/2015
• http://carnegie.org/publications/carnegie-reporter/single/view/article/item/124/ – Date accessed 18/03/2015
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-degraff/digital-natives-vs-digita_b_5499606.html – Date accessed 22/03/2015
• http://blastmedia.com/2012/11/06/online-vs-print-media/ – Date accessed – 22/03/2015
• http://www.prsa.org/intelligence/prjournal/documents/2014supa.pdf – Date accessed 22/03/2015
• http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/Vol8/No2/ – Date accessed 22/03/2015
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR4LdnFGzPk – Date accessed 25/03/2015
• http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender?language=en – Date accessed 25/03/2015
• http://blog.iain-tulungagung.ac.id/chusnulchotimah/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2013/11/Global-Purel.pdf
• http://www.academia.edu/3245711/Time_to_bridge_the_gaps_issues_with_current_social_media_research_in_public_relations – Date accessed 25/03/2015