Final- newspaper- Smalley
by Brian Smalley
Newspapers have been around since the late 1400’s, when Germany first published news in the forms of pamphlets or broadsides. Benjamin Harris published the first newspaper in the American colonies in Boston during 1690, “Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick.” Since the American War of Independence, the newspaper has gone through tremendous changes up to the present.
Throughout most of U.S. history, newspapers were the dominant mass medium. However, since the 1940’s, the newspaper industry has experienced slow destruction in the number of papers published, the percentage of the population that follow them, increasing costs, and competition. Today, most U.S. cities and towns have one daily newspaper.
The earliest papers in the British North American colonies focused mostly on exploiting international news from England, however experienced censorship from the government. Newspapers from early on in this time period were usually no longer than four pages and were filled with primarily short news items. The papers started to gain readers when Americans began debating separation from England.
By the end of the 18th century, newspapers witnessed explosive growth in the number of papers and readers due to further technological advances. With the steam engine driving presses by 1835 and advances in mechanical papermaking technologies, the availability of newsprint at low costs increased and papers would cost little as “one cent.” Then came the telegraph, which provided information about everything and enabled newspapers to get information needed to tell readers what was happening in the world. As a result, mass circulation transformed newspapers into precious businesses accompanied with large staffs, which were beginning to be seen more as providers of information than a vehicle for one’s opinion. The papers started to see themselves as a medium for objective journalism.
In the first half of the 20th century, newspaper chains had the ability to hold sway over the public through their power to produce newspapers with the same viewpoint in key U.S. markets. However, people felt these papers were not representing their points of view and interests. In the second half of the century, there were more efforts to produce a more user-friendly newspaper, with punchier stories and more graphics.
In conclusion, the newspaper has changed dramatically. They are a lot longer than they used to be, more expensive, only one copy is published a day rather than every few hours, and even sports now play a big role in our news when in the past were irrelevant. Millions of papers are now being produced, however newspapers are losing their dominance due to technology and internet, which allows news to be decentralized. From the beginning of history, information traveled only as fast as the person or object carrying it. Now it travels as fast as you can find it by the click of a mouse.
Throughout most of the communication industries histories in the pre-digital, analog world, they developed more or less separately, with their own business structures, distribution systems, and production cultures. Each individual media industry expanded according to the authoritarian and social environments that existed when the standard came into its own. However, media scholar Mark Deuze, describes “how ‘convergence’ of the traditional media industries and new-audience participatory cultures are changing the media landscape.” Many media businesses have abandoned the old industrial model of manufacturing and distributing media content, and have adopted a model of creative networking. Where as in the past where people felt the media was inaccurately representing them, audiences now more than ever have a bigger, more active, influential role in deciding what media content is produced, how it is delivered, and how it can be customized specifically for the audience.
Although convergence can sometimes seem negative (taking away jobs, increasing responsibility), these media industries need convergence today in order to survive. As in the textbook, “Convergence culture, as a concept, articulates a shift in the way global media industries operate, and how people as audiences interact with them. It recognizes contemporary media culture as a primarily participatory culture.(347)” In today’s world, the audience is no longer just a mass market to display information to- it is now also an increasingly segmented and fragmented public to join forces with in the co-creation of experiences and content. Audiences have also grown more fond of interactive media. This is why in the present digital and networked global media world, the roles played by advertisers, media producers, and content consumers are converging. “Production systems of media industries are now integrating different locales of cultural production into a global production system, where they are integrating and localizing cultural values and regional symbols across dispersed markets.(352)” Therefore convergence can be seen as the integration of various media industries in a global production network.
Going back to interactive media and user participation, it seems both have drastically increased over time. The Baltimore Sun, for example, is a news industry that uses both. They use videos to make stories and news more interesting to their viewers, along with advertisement to keep you occupied. They also include blogs and pieces to comment on, so the audience can express their feelings and opinions on whatever they wish to talk about, and feel like they are more connected with the world around them.
