The Influences of Internet on Traditional News Media

The Influences of Internet on Traditional News Media

The dramatically increasing popularity of the online news media treated as an important source has changed all aspects of public living-style. People now are inclined to acquire information needed from WWW rather than obtain them from traditional news media such as newspapers, TV, and radio. Will the online news media thoroughly replace traditional news media? Scholars have been discussing the substitution or displacement of old media since at least the mid-twentieth century(Laswell, 1948). According to the analysis on attitudes from adult generation towards news on old and new platforms, time costs and credibility of news , however, old news platforms may not be replaced by new platforms totally. Most people still prefer traditional news media as first information source.

News media used differs in different generations by various characteristics such as age, family formulation, and growth environment. According to a recent research (Bergstro and Wadbring, 2012), 65% adult Swedish would watch television news every evening if possible. Moreover, 58% support that the Internet will never replace daily newspapers, radio and television in the future. This research definitely point out adult group favor traditional news media obviously. The reasons for the results are various. Firstly, it seems that our media habits tend to stabilize at around 25 years of age (Wadbring and Bergstrom, 2012). Most people born before 1980s grew up in company with traditional platforms such as newspapers, TV, and radio. Before 1990s, coffee and newspapers are the two things to begin a day. While TV was the last thing before going to bed. Old habits die hard. So are these two. Even in those days with no TV, radio was as the first source for people to acquire news and information everyday. Radio was the first and only source while driving. It is not easy to drop these old ways for elders.

Furthermore, because of preference that treating traditional news media as the first source of news, adult groups, especially born before 1980s do not use computer skillfully. Previous work has suggested that news audiences may be engaged in habitual use of media that they are already familiar with them (Miller and Reese, 1982; Neuman, 1991; Rubin, 1994). In other words, People tend to quit using new technology such as accessing to Internet, learning basic computer skills because of the high opportunity costs associated with adopting this new technology (Althaus and Tewksbury,2011). For example, before arrived at Adelaide, I had tried to instruct my parents to use a chatting software to talk with me online, however, they abandoned learning after ten minutes. They thought that was wasting of time because telephone would be more convenient. So spending extra time learning new skills is another very basic factor for many people to hold their old habits.

Moreover, accompanied by the fact that online news are fast and convenient, lack of credibility is a notorious weak point of Internet news. The worst result is that people become highly suspectable to news from the Internet. A number of research have compared level of credibility between the Internet and traditional news media. One of the key observations about the internet is that information can be uploaded and published without necessarily through a rigorous editorial and fact-checking process (Johnson and Kaye, 1998). On the contrary, most of other major media such as television, radio and newspapers, published news which has been carefully selected and checked(Flanagin and Metzger, 2000). Due to this serious situation, increasing people, especially adult group, suspect and criticize the veracity of online news from unofficial website and uncertain sources and incline to traditional news platforms.

In a conclusion, although online news has been the first source of news for a dramatically increasing number of people, especially to young groups, most of public still prefer to traditional news media because their habit, time costs, and higher credibility and reliability than online news. Traditional news media may not be replaced by online news completely in the future.

Reference List
John,V, Pavlik, New media and news:implications for the future of journalism, New Media& Society, the SAGE Social Science Collections.

Scott, L, Althaus & David Tewksbury 2000, Patterns of Internet and traditional news media use in a networked community, Political Communication.

Barrie Gunter& Vincent Campbell& Maria Touri& Rachel Gibson, Bolgs 2008, news and credibility, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Regina Marchi 2012, With facebook, blogs, and fake news, teens reject journalistic ”objectivity”, Journal of Communication Inquiry.

Alfred Hermida 27 May 2009, The blogging BBC, Routledge, Journalism Practice.

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