in Journalism and Mass Communication
Advertising spending increased 6.5% in 2010 up from 2009, reports Stuart Elliot from the New York Times. Ad spending had fallen in 2009 with the economy suffering.
The newspaper category was the only one to still have a decline in 2010. Read the full story here
From Newsonomics March 14, 2011 - Timing may not be everything, but it’s a lot in life, and the New York Times could have not have picked a better time — soon – to launch both its new paid plans and new tablet product.
Why? Well, the world’s conspired to wait, along with the rest of us, for the Times’ 14-month gestation period to conclude, since it announced a new pay plan, way back in January, 2010, seemingly another age. Let’s just tick off the can-you-believe-this context for the Times’ imminent launch. Read more.
Editor & Publisher, Mark Fitzgerald | [...] The study found that just 56% Internet users ranked newspapers as important or very important sources of information for them, down from 60% in 2008 — and below the Internet (78%) and television (68%).
And while newspapers also regard themselves as being in the entertainment business, just 29% of users consider them as important sources of entertainment, down from 32% two years ago, and last among principal media. [Read more...]
As U.S. newspaper publishers increasingly talk of building paywalls around their online content to ward off free-riders cannibalizing their print product, new research suggests that such efforts may backfire because most local users of local newspaper sites already are paying customers—by paying for the print edition.
A study published in the latest issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly found that two-thirds of visitors to local newspaper websites are “hybrid” readers—that is, they regularly read the print edition (and most of them pay for it) as well as the online version—in contrast to the remaining one-third of “online-only” readers. [Read more...]
Jeremy Peters | [...] Such is the state of the media business these days: frantic and fatigued. Young journalists who once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story are instead shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.
Tracking how many people view articles, and then rewarding — or shaming — writers based on those results has become increasingly common in old and new media newsrooms. The Christian Science Monitor now sends a daily e-mail message to its staff that lists the number of page views for each article on the paper’s Web site that day. [Read more...]
Reporters are using Internet tools, such as blogs and social media sites, to aid in coverage of public meeting as staff cuts in newsrooms across the nation mean fewer meetings are covered, a recent study published in Newspaper Research Journal reports.
In-depth interviews of 19 reporters from newspapers across the Southeast facing newsroom cutbacks found that reporters often use social media and blogging tools to report extra information, often procedural and content-related, while the final article in print focused on meeting outcomes. The researchers also found reporters use the Internet to avoid attending public meetings by doing things such as e-reading meeting minutes. [Read more...]
By Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University | Newspaper
How to best offer our students the skills and knowledge needed for success in their careers is undoubtedly important to all the divisions and interest groups of AEJMC. Given the tumultuous nature of the industry, not to mention the media landscape, most—if not all—journalism schools, departments, and programs have made changes in their curriculums.
I think the issue of curriculum change and development is particularly important to the Newspaper Division in large part because traditional newspaper writing and editing courses have been the backbone of journalism curriculums. But, in today’s environment, that simply won’t do. [Read more...]
By Stephen Lacy
Professor, Department of Communication and School of Journalism, Michigan State University
Digital distribution of information has created concerns about the future of news organizations. Observers have speculated on how the Internet has and will change journalism, with almost as many different conclusions as there are speculators. These concerns have caused journalism educators around the country to reevaluate how they teach journalism.
The Internet is a marvelous tool for the distribution of journalism and for allowing citizen participation in journalism. However, the Internet has had more impact on who participates in journalism than on the quality of journalism. When it comes to the opinion function of journalism, a well-constructed argument remains a well-constructed argument regardless of whether it appears as a blog or a column in a newspaper. In news, citizens continue to expect reporters to meet at least three goals: to provide a summary of important events, to translate complex issues into understandable intelligence, and to dig up and publish information that people in positions of power want to keep hidden. The essence of journalism is that journalists find, create and package information that people want and need. This remains true even in a three-screen, digital world.
If one accepts this proposition, then the role of journalism education is to help students learn how to create the journalism that accomplishes these three goals. To that end, here are some observations. [Read more...]
A new research study published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly examines general and robust constructs of news media brand personality that are applicable across multiple news media outlets, including broadcast and cable news networks, national and local newspaper, and news magazines.
Through a series of rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis procedures with the final set of 48 personality traits, the authors show that that news media brand personality is composed of five dimensions: Trustworthiness, Dynamism, Sincerity, Sophistication, and Toughness.
One of the significant contributions of this study is to provide news media companies a reliable and valid method to assess their brand personality. [Read more...]
Joining in online newspapers’ message forums increases participants’ perception that they understand their local communities better, according to a new research study in the Spring 2010 edition of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. However, that participation and accompanying sense of community understanding is not related to their getting out and taking part in real-world community activities.
These findings are based on a survey of 538 participants in message forums at the online sites associated with 80 U.S. newspapers. Such forums generally consist of a portion of the website where visitors can post comments organized into common message “threads,” and can be found at about a third of all U.S. online newspapers. [Read more...]
