The Future of Print Media

Introduction

The print media refers to books, periodicals, and newspapers. It is also called the old media because for over five hundred years until recently there was little change in the way these were published. The term “new media” refers to the new means of information publishing and dissemination, and includes websites, news portals, blogs, e-mail and podcasting, to name a few. The new media is based on the World Wide Web and does not require the use of paper.

The print media started after 1440 when Johann Guttenberg of Germany invented the printing press. The printing press was an instrument of production that made it possible to produce multiple copies of a book or newspapers once type was set. Its true significance lies in its contribution to the spread of ideas and knowledge. Before the printing press arrived, books used to be written by hand and considerable time was required to produce just one copy. Information and knowledge, therefore, remained in short supply. The present digital or electronic media revolution represents the next stage in the development of publishing and it adds immense storage, retrieval and distribution possibilities to the production of printed word. The new media revolution was achieved as a result of the development of desktop publishing in mid-eighties due to advances in computer science and which once again revolutionized the process of production, and, second, the scope of retrieval and dissemination of information on the World Wide Web due to the rapid advances in the information and communication technologies.

The advances in Internet and information technologies in the last ten years have brought about a structural change in the way information is aggregated, transformed, and then disseminated. This was earlier done by a select group of people engaged in the news and publishing industries. The Internet has empowered the consumer of information to also become its producer and distributor. This has resulted in the elimination of barriers to media entry, the rise of distributed journalism, and the flood of reporting and related activities, thus challenging the foundations of the old media news and publishing establishments.

Most people of the older generation prefer to get their news the old-fashioned way i.e., from newspapers and magazines printed on paper, but also like to supplement this by turning to other sources on the Internet. The younger generation, on the other hand, depends mostly on sources in the new media like blogs, podcasts, or subject-specific portals. There is genuine concern that as the older generation moves on, the old media will also gradually disappear.

The Future of Newspapers

Newspapers have been concerned about their future for some time now. While the number of adults reading newspapers and the number of papers sold each week are higher than ever before, the growth of newspaper readership has not kept up with the growth of population in Indonesia. Young people, especially, are not turning to newspapers. Young people who seek news for years have turned to television, which has done a superficial job, for the most part.

And now comes along the Internet. The Internet gives us up-to-the minute news the way radio has been able to do, but the Internet lets you filter out the news you don’t care about and only receive the news you do care about.

This certainly begs the question: Are the print media dying?

But by some definitions, the newspaper is one of the most interactive media around. That paper product just isn’t electronic.

• You can start reading them at the beginning, middle or end.
• You can stop anytime you want, and start again when you want.
• There are indexes to help you jump around to the spots you want.
• You can take it almost anywhere.
• You don’t need batteries.

Thirty years ago the experts were predicting that newspapers as we knew them would be dead “in 10 years”. We’d all be receiving news from video text machines (a primitive form of computer). Well, today, the experts are not predicting that newspapers are going to go away, but they will change. Readers will look to both the Internet and print editions of the paper for news. Newspapers have strong brand recognition when it comes to news and readers who want reliable news will go to the media they trust.

But print media that go online will not succeed simply by shoveling their old content onto the World Wide Web. To make money they will have to provide value added services, such as search capabilities for old stories, search capabilities for classified ads, and original web content.

In actuality, there is a greater demand today for news and information. Those who are trained to reliably gather information from a variety of sources, synthesize or make sense of it, and repackage it for dissemination in a variety of formats will be great demand . . . ARE in great demand.

New media, which includes the World Wide Web, is one of the fastest growing and highest paying career fields for the news media. The vast majority of newspapers in the country now have websites, through most of them are stuck in the paradigm of creating content for their print editions and then simply moving it over to the World Wide Web. They all know they need to be there, but are confused on how to profit from being there. Only a few newspapers have come close to breaking even.

The Future of Magazines

Magazines are thriving today. True, the general interest magazine has gone by the wayside. But the special niche magazines are catching on. Advertisers are anxious to target their ads to specialized audiences.

Some print magazines are even taking advantage of technology to deliver the same magazine with specialized advertising for targeted geographical regions. It won’t be long until the technology will allow them to target advertising specifically to each advertiser.

Magazines are also finding a niche in new media, too. Whether on the World Wide Web or on compact disk, ‘zines are popping up. ‘Zines are magazines that exist in electronic form only and can contain sound and animation that print cannot. They may cover a tightly focused topic and may exist for one issue only. Or they may be “high gloss” magazines.

And, of course, like the newspapers, magazines are experimenting with moving their print content online.

Indonesian Case

In Indonesian case, the fast development of online media came along with the political reform 1998. One of the pioneers is an online newspaper names “detik.com.” The word “detik” literally means “second” in Indonesian language. It refers to frequent level of it information and news reproducing. Although it doesn’t really produce the news and information every second, but they prove the readers that the media frequently display the news in a fast way. Its character simply divides the online media and the printed media. The printed media need a long time process to display their news. If an occurrence happened today morning, maybe the readers should wait until the next morning to read the news. Detik.com as an online media offers a different way in which the readers can read the occurrence only some seconds after the occurrence.

The mode of news displaying is a bit similar to TV and Radio do, but the online newspaper offer more easy ways. Radio and TV give only one time display news. Take an example in a live report, the audience should pay attention in the same time when the news displayed. When the audiences are busy in the same time, then they will lose their chance to watch or listen to the news. The online newspapers give a different way to pay attention. The audience can collect the information from mass media every time they’d like to. They can collect it in the same time with the time the news released, one second later, one minute later, and so on. So, we can say that online newspaper offers a way to consume information with the more choice on the audiences. Back to Indonesian case, it has made detik.com become one of the most favorable media in Indonesia.

During the chaotic time of 1998 political reform, audiences do need any fast-news to consume. Formerly, detik.com merely displayed any political information. Anyhow, Indonesian audiences that time really need fast and comprehensive news to reveal the chaotic situation. That time, many observers underestimate toward detik.com in case that there are only a very few internet users in Indonesia within that era. But the pessimism of many observers has become the prominent step of the media. Precisely, the excellence of the media is the fact that it had started the project of online newspaper when others still stuck in the conventional model of newspaper. But, many observers have an adequate argument on their skeptic view toward detik.com that time. They made their argument upon a fact that that time there are still a very small number of internet users in Indonesia.

But slowly and surely, the audiences of detik.com become larger and larger. The time when detik.com was founded in July 1998, the number of all internet users in Indonesia only counts for 2.500 users. That time, the media only counted 30.000 hits of viewer each day. The next year in 1999, the first online newspaper counted 214.000 hits each day. Finally, in 2007 detik.com has counted more than 3 million readers each day. The number belongs to a fantastic one. We can note another mass media, kompas, the most popular printed newspaper in Indonesia founded at 1965. In 2009, this media counts a 500 thousands customer per day, and read by about 1,8 million readers each day. In this case, we can see that the online newspaper can reach almost the twice numbers of printed newspaper’s readers while the age of online newspaper is less than a half of the other one. In 2012, the number of Indonesian internet user has reached 63 million users. It provides a much more optimistic market for online newspaper.

The fact has encouraged some media industry to make some market expansion. The industry of online media in one side, has expanded their scope of their media. In this case, detik.com which formerly only ran an online newspaper, finally has extent their media to the form of online magazine and online daily newspaper. On the other side, the printed media has also expanded their business to online version. This step firstly done by kompas by founded kompas.com. Firstly, the online version is merely duplicate of printed version which is displayed in World Wide Web version. But later, the online version has developed its own new version. Generally, the online version displays more breaking news, while the printed version provides a more characteristic of featured news. Later, in the middle of 2000 decade, almost all of Indonesian printed newspaper has made their online version.

The question then, will the printed newspaper survive in the era of new media? The fact shows that the printed media still survive to attract their customers. The old media readers are still loyal to the printed media. This condition can be considered as a result of some arguments:

1. Most of online newspaper display simple straight news which similar to breaking news with a fast displayed news. While, most of printed newspaper display an in-depth news with an extensive investigation at once. By this condition, a reader should only as often as possible to read an online news if s/he want to know a comprehensive information. By contrary, a reader of printed news will get comprehensive news only by a once reading time.
2. Reading an online newspaper has been a long lasting tradition in our society. In this case, someone has been very familiar to have a tea or coffee and read a printed newspaper in the same time. This is not easy to change them by replace the newspaper with a set of laptop or a small set of mobile phone.
3. Some people are still in favor to collect information as a clipping to save and manage information. In many libraries, we still find the printed clipping of some information rather than online clipping of some news and information.

With those conditions, we can see that online newspaper has been one of media superstar in Indonesia. In spite of that fact, printed media which are predicted to be expelled out by the rising of online media, in fact still have their old customer.

Conclusion

The rise of new media with the innovation has enriched the development of mass media. In this context, the rising of online newspaper and magazines has made a significant note in Indonesia. Some observers predict that the printed media would be expelled out from the market competition related to the rising of the online newspaper. In fact, the printed newspapers and magazines still prevent their market.

The survival of printed media is strongly influenced by the trend of the information model offered by the two types of media. The online model usually offered straight news information, while the printed model usually offers an in-depth news. In other side, the printed media also has been any kind of tradition which has been done by many people for a very long time.

Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that in the next period, the printed media would still survive to compete against online media. A research in England shows that almost 90 percent children in read books from electronic version. It means that electronic version can also provide a model of in-depth and comprehensive information. In this case, people’s choice to consume whether an online or printed information are strongly depend on their favor. May be sometimes we’d like to read an online version, and the next time we’d like to read a printed version.

But the more and more closer relation among man and computer maybe will urge the more favor to online version. With this reason, then the printed media industry also prepare themselves to provide an online version of their news and information. Of course, they would still maintain their quality to survive in the market competition.