Death of Print: The decline of print and traditional medias? is a a research project by Matthew Carlin a BA Multimedia Student at Nottingham Trent University, UK. The research is looking into the apparent decline of traditional media as reported by some media organisations, and will evaluate whether traditional media is still a viable format in the 21st century.
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This chapter of the report will look into what the future is for both traditional media and digital media, it will evaluate where they are both heading and also look into new technologies that may help or hinder them.
Firstly, traditional media.
Traditional media seems to have been suffering a somewhat ‘bumpy ride’ recently, as we have seen from this report there have been reports in the decline of traditional media, Advertising revenues have been falling in the Major broadcasters of the UK “ITV Braced for £80m slump in ad revenue” (Guardian 2006) though as discussed previously in the report this may be a UK specific problem at the moment as some areas are experiencing growth in this area such as the markets of Asia.
As we have seen from this report too, there is certainly a trend emerging towards digital media, we have seen reports of traditional media companies either buying successful digital media companies or traditional media companies changing their news desks into ‘Multimedia Hubs’ that also produce video content “Newsquest embraces Multimedia” (Guardian 2006)“ Times fuses print and web business desks”(Guardian 2006).
There have also been hybrid style magazines such as specialten (specialten.com) that come in a magazine style format but all the content is on a DVD which is enclosed inside. This could potentially be one of the future formats of the traditional magazine in a world that is seeing an increasing use in digital media, some people still prefer to have something physical in their hands when reading magazines and newspapers, but digital media such as DVD’s are getting ever cheaper.
The report feels that looking at the evidence, in this report, the future for traditional media is not as bleak as some people report it to be, Alex Graham of Wall to Wall Television argues “Oh for goodness sake, I think that every time there is a new technology people predict the death of the old one, but movies didn't kill off newspapers, television didn't kill off the cinema, video didn't kill off television, and nor did DVDs, and the internet will not kill off television networks either.” (Guardian 2006) Traditional media will still continue, albeit in a slightly altered form. It will be no longer sufficient for newspapers to just have print desk, they will have to come into the digital age and produce content for the website as well as for the newspaper, which will involve multimedia hubs, remember though, multimedia is not just restricted to purely digital medias. Traditional media will also have to integrate itself into digital media more tightly, we have seen in things like the BBC news Reports where they tell you can download the podcast or they tell you to go the website. No longer will Broadcasters be restricted to just television, they will be multi platform broadcasters. This same theory has been discussed at the recent crossmediaweek.org conference by Gary Carter of FreemantleMedia (video of this can be seen on the DVD). Carter also points out in the presentation that every time a new technology has come about, people have said it will be the death of old technology, when television first came out, everyone said that cinema would die out but cinema is still here. This is what will happen to television and traditional media. They will evolve and adapt to a world full of multimedia possibilities.
Now what is the future for digital media?
As we have seen from this report, and reports in the media, digital media is certainly here to stay. But what is the future for digital media, where will it go from what it is now?
Well in terms of technology, there are new technologies being developed such as roll up screens (bbc.co.uk 2006) and electronic paper (fujitsui). There also technologies such as smart homes falling to lower prices and not being just limited to the super rich. Another key technology being developed is SDR (bbc.co.uk 2006). This is Software defined radio, essentially a piece of software that can converge a number of different wireless gadgets into one device whether those radio wave signals are 3G OR Wi-fi etc...
Another part of the future of digital media will be the continuing advance of technologies on the internet, such as what we have seen in so called web 2.0. These are technologies that are mimicking what we usually do on the computer itself. This can be seen now in projects launched by Google such as “Google Doc’s and spreadsheets” (Google 2006) This is a word processor and spreadsheet based entirely in a web browser. As digital media progresses we will see more of this type of thing being replicated on the web, that is computer software being replicating purely in an internet browser.
The future of digital media also seems to be mobile. As we have seen in this survey, from independent research and OFCOM essentially every person in the United Kingdom owns a mobile. The survey conducted by this report also shows a high ownership of laptops. As mobiles get more powerful we will see more and more digital media truly becoming available and usable on a mobile. Look at the history of mobile, 10 years ago, the only thing you really got a mobile was the ability to make calls and to send texts, now we have 3 Mega pixel camera, colour screens with the ability to run video (as well as watching mobile TV),wi-fi and mp3 players built into your mobile. This has all come about in ten years, in another ten years, mobile will be faster, and have more gadgets in them. Hopefully this will lead to the ability for mobiles to run software and features that we currently use on PC’s now.
Laptops we have seen from this report are becoming commonplace and as we have seen that of those who own them, a majority of them use them almost everyday. The future of digital media will be helped by this, laptops will become commonplace in a lot of households enabling users to not only communicate but to download there favourite TV show that they have missed, and then watch it on there TV screen wirelessly.
This is what will be the future of digital media; it will continue to push the boundaries of what it can do, and being able to replicate the traditional medias (at least in some aspects). It will also become more and more mobile and the mobile telephone and laptops get more powerful, faster, cheaper and more efficient.