News Media & Modernization

Introduction

There is no doubt that traditional news outlets have been impacted by the Internet, social media, and smartphones. Traditional news outlets now have to compete with independent bloggers and social media websites. Recent studies have provided insights on how the popularity of blogs, social media, and other user-generated content venues have impacted the way in which news is consumed and reported.

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. Most people of the older generation prefer to get their news the old-fashioned way i.e., from newspapers and magazines. The younger generation, on the other hand, logs on to online sources for their information needs. There is genuine concern that as the older generation moves on, the old media will also gradually disappear.

The rise of the new media has put the old (print) media establishment on the defensive. The new is not displacing the old, however; rather, it is transforming the old by forcing it to accept transparency, responsiveness and efficiency. Increased competition is making the old media to pull up its socks and provide the additional value demanded by a free market where the number of players has multiplied.

Since this small thesis will focus on news media and modernization, we are going to discuss about how the popularity of social media and other generated content venues have impacted the way in which news is consumed and distributed.

Social Media and News Consumption

Online news consumers receive and send news through social media tools such as Twitter, blogs, Facebook, YouTube, and search engines. These tools elevate the public from news receivers to news contributors. According to Picard (2009), social media tools provide an easy, affordable way for members of the public to take part in discussions with larger groups of people and draw attention to issues and topics that traditional news media might have overlooked. Social media tools offer users the opportunity to express themselves and to connect with persons of like mind or interests.

Hermida (2010) claims that social media tools created new modes of organizing knowledge that rely on large, loosely organized groups of people working together electronically. Hermida also suggests that social media enables millions of people to communicate instantly, allowing them to share and discuss events that he asserts leads to an expression of collective intelligence.

Socialization of the News

Park (1940) noted that the function of news is to orient man and society in an actual world. Past research has found that news use enables participation by providing mobilizing information (Lemert, 1992), triggering discussions among people's networks (Shah et al., 2005), and allowing people to reflect upon issues (Eveland, 2004). Java et al. (2007) conducted studies that looked at the motivation of online new consumers, concluding that social media fulfills a need for a fast mode of communication that ‘‘lowers users’ requirement of time and thought investment for content generation’’ (Java et al., 2007, p. 2). In their analysis of user intentions, they found that people use Twitter for four reasons: daily chatter, conversation, sharing information and reporting news.

The advent of social media has helped the news become a social experience in fresh ways for consumers. People use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news. Some of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from their favorite source or topics.

News consumption is a socially-engaging and socially-driven activity, especially online (Leach, 2009). Leach (2009) claims that a great strength of the Internet is its ability to encourage the formation of community while giving voice to anyone digitally connected. In journalism, recognizing diversity and inviting feedback adds depth and human interest. Those who are overlooked in mainstream media coverage, including people espousing unpopular causes, can use the Internet to gather and share information and use it to stitch online communities together.

To a great extent, people’s experience of news is becoming a shared social experience as people swap links in emails, post news stories on their social networking site feeds, highlight news stories in their tweets, and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads. The ascent of mobile connectivity via smartphones has turned newsgathering and news awareness into an anytime, anywhere affair for a segment of avid news watchers.

Users who get news online specifically get news from news organizations and individual journalists they follow in the social networking space. In other words, they have friended or become a fan of a journalist or news organization and they catch up on news through this relatively new channel of news dissemination. Internet users have the option to get news from friends, journalists or news organizations they follow on social networking websites.

Traditional News Embracing Social Media

Twitter is now used as a collaborative research tool by editors and journalists working on stories and blogs, both for ideas and to provide evidence for all branches of news including breaking, foreign, entertainment, and others (Ahmad, 2010). In 2009 Twitter and other social media emerged as powerful tools for disseminating information and mobilizing citizens such as evading the censors in Iran and communicating from the earthquake disaster zone in Haiti. The majority of Internet users now use some kind of social media, including Twitter, blogging and networking sites. Leach (2009) claims that when journalists were banished or silenced by the Iranian government after the post-election protests in Iran, news organizations and Web sites relied on showing random snippets of video, text messages or tweets sent from people witnessing the protests on the streets of Tehran.

Studies have suggested that bloggers play the roles of commentators, fact checkers, event shapers, and even grass-root reporters for the news media. Moreover, Bui and Ma (2009) assert that blog content is not only consumed by the public but also by media professionals who want to quickly react to cues from bloggers in order to create more news for the traditional media.

Report : Indonesia

Indonesia has emerged as the country with the highest dependence on mobile Internet access in Southeast Asia, with almost half of all citizens surfing the web via their smartphones, a Nielsen report says.

The percentage of Indonesian citizens using their mobile phones to access the Internet far surpasses those in other countries in the Southeast Asia region, with the next two highest being Thailand with 36 percent and Singapore with 35 percent.

Who's Online

According to MarkPlus Insight Netizen Survey 2014

The survey reveals that Indonesia now has 74.6 million Internet users, a 22 percent increase from last year’s 61.1 million. That number will pass 100 million in 2015.

The study also counts “netizen penetration”, wherein a netizen is defined as someone who spends at least three hours online per day. Indonesia now has 31.7 million of them this year, an increase from 24.2 million people last year. The study notes that the netizen penetration rate increased by a meager three percent.

Almost half of the netizens in Indonesia are aged below 30, while people above 45 years of age make up 16.7 percent of netizens in the country. Most netizens access the web via smartphones (86 percent) and spend between IDR 50,000 ($5) and IDR 100,000 ($10) every month for internet access.

Digital Media is Taking Over the Traditional Business

Based on MarkPlus Insight Netizen Survey 2014

The survey reveals a significant shift of attention from the traditional media to the online world. Only 55.3 percent of netizens have read print newspapers in the last six months. 98 percent of respondents have accessed TV and Internet in the last six months, but when it comes to the main source of information, the Internet gets the win as shown in the graph above.

Of course, the respondents here are netizens – people who spend a lot of time online – so this result doesn’t represent the whole Indonesian populace.

When it comes to the most searched information on the net, Indonesia’s power web-users mostly search for news (54.2 percent), entertainment (16.3 percent), film (10.2 percent), sports (8.7 percent), and music (8.5 percent). Political news (7.4 percent), soap operas (6.0 percent), celebrity news (5.5 percent), gossip (5.2 percent), and educational material (5.0 percent) make up the rest of top searches.

Conclusion

New media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and smartphones have enabled news consumers to be informed in real time about major events and topics of interest. People depend on family members, close friends, and those who are part of their digital networks to act as reporters, alerting them when something they feel is important has happened or is happening.

Social media websites allow individuals to easily take part in discussions with their friends, family, and larger networks. With the help of social media tools, the Internet is fast changing the way people consume their news. The study determined that individuals are primarily motivated to share news stories with their social networks because they wanted to stay connected with others and to maintain relationships. Those who share news articles through social media enjoy doing so to discuss current events and trending topics with people in their social networks. In particular, young adults depend on their network of friends guide them to news articles. There is concern that this could lead to a fragmentation from mainstream news as news stories and issues that draw the most attention from social media websites are substantially different from traditional news outlets.

References

Ahmad, A. (2010). Is Twitter a Useful Tool for Journalists?. Journal of Media Practice, 11(2), 145-155.

Bui, C., & Ma, Y. (2009). Centrality of News Article in the Blogosphere. Conference Papers – International Communication Association, 1-35.

Eveland, W. P. (2004). The Effect of Political Discussion in Producing Informed Citizens: The Roles of Information, Motivation, and Elaboration. Political Communication, 21(2), 177-193.

Hermida, A. (2010). Twittering the News. Journalism Practice, 4(3), 297-308.

Java, A., Song, X., Finin, T., & Tseng, B. (2007). Why we Twitter: Understanding microblogging usage and communities. In: Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and 1st SNA- KDD 2007 workshop on Web mining and social network analysis. New York: ACM Press, 56-65.

Leach, J. (2009). Creating Ethical Bridges from Journalism to Digital News. Nieman Reports, 63(3), 42-44.

Lemert, J. B. (1992). Public opinion, the press, and public policy. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Park, R. E. (1940). News as a Form of Knowledge: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge. The American Journal of Sociology, 45(3), 669.

Picard, R. (2009). Blogs, Tweets, Social Media, and the News Business. Nieman Reports, 63(3), 10-12.

Shah, D. V., Cho, J., Eveland, W. P., & Kwak, N. (2005). Information and Expression in a Digital Age. Communication Research, 32(10), 531-565.

Modernization

Modernization and social pattern are important concepts in social change study, which is related with industrialization. Modernization is a concept in the sphere of social sciences that refers to process in which society goes through industrialization, urbanization and other social changes that completely transforms the lives of individuals.

Modernization brings human civilization on modern way. Science and technology increasingly grow by the discovery of up-to-date and new innovations. Innovations, which are usually founded by western country will be introduced to development country, such as Indonesia. E-mail, social network, and internet are born to give an easy way to communicate with people around the world.

One way to think carefully about the role of media in modernization is to look at past socio-cultural changes related to communication, such as the shift from an "oral culture" to a "print culture," from a world where most communication is almost entirely verbal to one where much of the most crucial forms of communication occur in writing and print.

The spread of reading and writing that was made possible by the printing press and widespread literacy is generally acknowledged to have been a central component in the making of the modern world. Writing allows communication between people who are distant from one another; it creates a kind of communication that's necessarily one-way, with little or no interaction. Writing was the first decontextualized communication, disembodied from the immediate experience of another individual. In print culture, where writing becomes omnipresent, communication is impersonal, often anonymous. As a result, in our world, we are in constant relations with people you don't know. The most important evidence in most court cases is written documentation. (That's why they tell you to always save the receipts; it's the piece of paper that matters, not the particular people involved.) This new way of relating has had profound effects.

Print was just the first of modern, impersonal communication technologies that allowed the widespread dissemination of ideas. Today, print and its successors allow the world to be full of alternative ideas: Karl Marx, George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden and countless others have all been able to spread their different views through the world only because they have access to modern communication technologies.

Marketing Communication Strategies of Bali Island as a Turning Point for Promoting Yogyakarta as a Cultural Tourism Destination of Indonesia

In Indonesia, tourism has been one of the important industries. Cultural tourism is considered as an integral part of the Indonesian tourism industry. In Bali, where most of Indonesian Hindus live, cultural and religious festivals with Balinese dance-drama performances in Balinese temples, are major attractions for foreign tourists. Beside Bali Island, cultural tourism also plays an important part in Yogyakarta, a special region in Indonesia known as the center of classical Javanese art and culture. The rise and fall of Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic kingdoms in Central Java have transformed Yogyakarta into a melting pot of Indonesian culture.

This research aims to explain the problem of tourism in Yogyakarta city, in which it made a less development compared to tourism in Bali Island. Although both destinations provide similar characteristics of tourism, but the number of tourists who visited Yogyakarta is much lower compared to those who travelled to Bali Island. Both Bali Island and Yogyakarta rely on the excellence of culture and natural attraction to draw tourists, but Bali Island made succeed to attract high number of tourists, while Yogyakarta didn’t.

A SWOT analysis was conducted in order to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of tourism in Bali Island and in Yogyakarta. In other words, SWOT analysis was applied because it provides an easy way to understand the situation of both tourism destinations. Moreover, this research focuses on two questions: (1) why foreign tourists prefer Bali Island more than Yogyakarta; and (2) how to improve the performance of tourism in Yogyakarta.

The research shows that there are three reasons why foreign tourists prefer Bali Island more than Yogyakarta: (1) the management of Bali Island is appropriate to the international standard of tourism destination; (2) the uniqueness of Balinese culture; and (3) sustainable improvement of tourist attractions, which is guarantee in tourist’s satisfaction. To achieve the similar success to Bali Island, Yogyakarta should prepare some improvements on tourism development. There are several marketing communication strategies which can be done to attract more foreign tourists to this city: (1) strengthening the positioning of Yogyakarta city as a cultural tourism destination; (2) product development; (3) unique package of cultural tourism; (4) marketing mix; (5) social media marketing; (6) collaboration with stakeholders of industry; and (7) collaboration with press.

Generally, this research tries to reveal the key factors to develop tourism of Yogyakarta, and the role of communication study in the development. Complete result of this research wishes to provide a contribution to the practice of marketing communication, especially in the tourism development.

巴厘岛与日惹文化旅游营销传播策略研究

在印度尼西亚，旅游业是其中一项重要产业。文化旅游被认为是印尼旅游业不可或缺的一部分。在大多数印度尼西亚印度教徒居住的巴厘岛，主要吸引外国游客的，是在巴厘神庙中表演巴厘人舞剧的文化和宗教节日。除了巴厘岛，文化旅游游在日惹（Yogyakarta）——印度尼西亚一个作为爪哇族古典文艺中心而知名的特殊地区——也起着重要作用。在爪哇岛中部，佛教、印度教、伊斯兰教等宗教王国的兴衰，已经把日惹转变为一个印尼文化大熔炉。

本研究的目的是解释为何日惹的旅游业相较于巴厘岛更不兴盛的问题。虽然两个旅游目的地都具有相似的旅游特色，但前往日惹旅行的游客远远少于巴厘岛。尽管巴厘岛和日惹都依赖文化和自然景观来吸引游客，但巴厘岛明显成功地吸引了更大量的游客，这是日惹所不及的。

本研究与巴厘岛作为参照系使用了态势分析法（SWOT）来比较分析巴厘岛和日惹作为旅游景点的优势、劣势、机会和威胁。换句话说，选择态势分析法（SWOT）是因为它能够提供一个更清晰直观的方式来解读这两地旅游业的现状。另外，这项研究主要着眼于两个问题：（1）为什么外国游客更钟情于巴厘岛而不是日惹；（2）如何改善日惹的旅游业现状。

研究显示，游客喜爱巴厘岛胜于日惹的原因有三：（1）巴厘岛的管理更贴合国际旅游胜地标准；（2）巴厘岛拥有其独一无二的巴厘文化；（3）保证游客满意的旅游项目的充分改善。要达到与巴厘岛同样水平的旅游业绩，日惹还需要在旅游项目开发上下功夫。以下是一些能够运用于吸引更多外国游客到日惹市的可行的市场交流策略：（1）日惹市旅游圣地地位的巩固；（2）产品开发；（3）独一无二的文化旅游包装；（4）市场混合；（5）社交传媒营销；（6）相关产业合作；（7）媒体合作。

总而言之，研究尝试找出促进日惹旅游业发展的关键因素以及交流学习在发展中所起的作用。整个研究结果旨在为市场交流提供一些理论参考，尤其是旅游业发展。

简单的爱情故事

他和她本来是同一个奶奶。他的妈妈和她的妈妈是姐妹。他比她大一岁。他们不是富人，每天只想怎么能赚钱让家人过生活，所以没有时间跟别人交往。

那时的她不像一位公主，而他也不像一位王子。他们看起来真的不配，性格有许多不同的，但他们有一样的爱好：运动。他们常常在球场上见面。

当他快要40岁时，他的母亲很担心他不会结婚。每一次介绍给他的女朋友都不适合。有一天，他跟他的母亲说，"别再介绍女朋友给我了，我已经喜欢一个人了"。他的母亲高兴得不得了，"是谁呢？"。他说，"那位女生是阿姨的女儿"。因为他的妈妈和她的妈妈担心这两位孩子不要结婚，然后就答应了。当他们结婚时，他已经41岁了，而她40岁了。3年后，他们有一个女儿了，那就是我。虽然不是一个很完美的家庭，但我们一家人都过得很幸福。