Financial Implications Of Gate Keeping

It is difficult to criticize those in community media regarding how they chose to interact with the public. It is a field with low staffing and tremendous workloads. Yet as Lowrey, Brozana, and Mackay (2008) suggest the potential exists for journalists who fail to interact online to miss an opportunity to foster an engaged audience. They also might relinquish their potential to guide the conversation through the manipulation that networked gatekeepers can use (Barzilai-Nahon, 2005). In addition, Webizens offer a potential group of sources to journalists facing an increasingly high demand for content. This dissertation supports previous research that shows journalists seeking to connect with an online community must willingly interact with the public (Meyer & Carey, 2014). There is a need for journalists through their interactions

Eli Pariser from TED Talk, “What Facebook and Google are Hiding from the World” reveals Facebook, Google and other major companies are notorious for keeping track of what type of content gets the user’s attention. Whether it be a local news article or a follow up on the presidential debate, these websites keep track and collect your data. From there on, the websites tailor their content to what they think the user will be most interested in. Depending on what the user’s past history, these websites can pick and choose what they show, which in turn can affect what the user is exposed to. Though it sounds like the perfect algorithm to customize content to the user’s interests, it keeps the user in a bubble and halts any change and growth, and limits their perspective. Another example of this, would be that media filters the content they present. Sandy Donovan claims, “ So the media has to choose which stories to cover...Those choices largely depend on what the media outlet’s audience wants to hear.” (Media, 9). Donovan is essentially saying if the media was geared to a specific subject, they would not be able to cover every piece of information, therefore they choose what is worth covering. Unfortunately, in this fast-paced day and age, headlines are what draw people in, and that does not necessarily mean that article of information is important

Problem Statement: The advent of internet brought about both challenges and opportunities for the newspaper industry. On one hand, it required redesigning a new product suited for online customers and on the other it was an opportunity to reach to 123 million potential customers in this category. Thus to keep up with the pace of emerging digitization in every field, like all newspapers, New York Times also added online reading in their product portfolio. However it only worsened the crisis the newspaper was already going through. The operating profit declined by more than 76% from 234Mn$ in 2010 to a mere 57Mn$ in 2011. The circulations were steadily declining and the new online advertising could not compensate for print advertising

With the development and constant improvement of technology, journalism, among other fields, has been forced to evolve. Specifically the field has had to incorporate technology in order to keep its readers. As Gingra states, “the process of change is far form over. Indeed, it will never be over. The pace of technological change will not abate, it will only quicken” (12). Gingra recognizes technologies current and future role in journalism. However, I feel that Gingra fails to recognize technology, specifically the internet, as a gatekeeper for journalism. Gingra remarks that “there are no longer any barriers to publishing—everyone has a printing press. There are no gatekeepers” (12). In the traditional sense of gatekeepers, one may argue that that has been eliminated from journalism; however, the Internet is a gatekeeper, since everyone in the world does not have access to the Internet. His statement here is narrow-minded and

The New York Times, as well as every other newspaper and magazine around the world, is struggling to find the best way to transition from traditional print to the digital space while still maintaining a profitable business. The current solution for the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States is a paywall, which requires readers of online content to pay for a digital subscription in order to have access to the site after a fixed monthly allowance of 20 articles. However, this pay metered method has been tried by the most popular American newspaper website before and the question is whether or not this strategy can help The Times evolve

Recommendation – NYT should continue with its Paywall initiative as upwards of 40% incoming traffic is from other sites i.e. Google, yahoo etc. Internet delivery on mobile devices is also becoming popular. Additionally, lots of users are able to access news content via leaky paywall. This reflects users increasing interest in accessing NYT news content in digital format. Digital edition is in early stages for adoption by end users. New sources and models for revenue generation or sharing are to be discovered and streamlined. Internet will become “platform of choice” for majority of users in near future. New industry needs to continue exploring methods to present news content to user preferred way and adapt to new and different streams of revenue. The digital edition is in its growth phase heading into maturity. There is still potential to increase and development. The data seem to indicate that the New York Times is able to identify those with more willingness to pay and they are getting them to purchase at these increased costs. This

He compares the basic form of spreading news, which is through newspaper, to user-generated content, such as social media platforms. With the invention of new, advanced technology comes new ways to deliver and spread information. He pins these two together, new vs. old, stating that user-generated content is replacing the articles created by professional correspondents. He states that some people believe user-generated content is unreliable because of the insight, speculation, and propaganda that are thrown into the mix. Yet Goodman insists that while social media is here to stay, the good-old-fashioned newspapers are just as useful. He declares that there is simply nothing wrong with the discovery of fresher platforms to inform readers. By viewing both opposing sides of the argument, Goodman shows his audience his open-mindedness and ability to give his readers a chance to make their own choice. Despite allowing his audience to choose their stance, he proves his solution

Interactivity and the use of UGC are tools that media companies attempt to use as part of creating public engagement. As people spend more time spend online, they are increasingly interactive, and conversely, there is a greater chance they might become engaged with the content (Yang & Coffey, 2014). There is a weak correlation between interactivity and circulation (Graham & Greenhill, 2013), and increased circulation could mean additional income for the publication. Engagement results from someone feeling involved; such as if they believe they are supporting a community online (Meyer & Speakman, 2016). Yet, despite the appearance of openness of virtual communities, there remain boundaries that impact those inside digital communities

Gatekeeping is “controlling access to goods, services, or information, usually applied by individuals or groups in hierarchical organizations. ” (CSA). As it applies to media, gatekeeping refers to the method in which information is filtered for distribution, this can be done through the internet, print or broadcasting. Due to the power that gatekeepers wield in controlling what we as the public read, hear or see, there are many ethical concerns to be considered and liberties to be safeguarded.

The U.S. newspaper industry is in a time of transition. Ad revenue profits and print readership have been steadily declining for years and things are only continuing to get worse. As readers slowly gravitate towards the internet to fulfill their news needs, more and more newspapers are being forced to close their doors. In spite of this, the spirit of journalism cannot be allowed to die. Media expert Clay Shirky (2009, para. 10) writes that, “There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.” Shirky’s right, there is no general model because it’s no longer about replacing newspapers; it’s about saving journalism and giving journalists a new media in which to thrive.

Bias in media is easily identifiable in today’s modern politics, and news channels are the most common culprit, but there is still bias in online publishers for articles as well. The problem that stems from bias in media is the account of how each candidate

The Internet integration into the industry has impacted the social factors such as newspaper’s external environment. It has influenced its customers` reading behaviour and taken up a significant part of their daily news habits. Low internet subscription cost and search engines have changed readers` perception and value of

This dissertation takes a step forward from prior research projects that conducted surveys to gauge a person’s willingness to comment or submit UGC through the use of content analysis in an attempt to gauge how much UGC community newspaper websites actually publish. In addition, the survey of community newspapers website managers offered some context to what choices might occur behind the scenes including the percentage of content submitted by the audience community media actually publishes. The expectation was that the percentage of UGC published would be high based past research that community media would make the gatekeeping choice to use UGC as a way of interacting with the public (Rennie, 2007). However, the results indicated that

The descriptive data shows a slightly different story when it comes to how important community newspaper website managers consider publishing UGC online. When these managers answered generally about the importance of publishing UGC online there were 100 respondents, 30.7%, who consider it somewhat important to publish UGC online. A total of 232, 71.2%, consider it at least somewhat important to publish UGC online. There were 94 respondents, 28.8%, who considered it at least somewhat unimportant to publish UGC online. This is more than three times the percentage of respondents who had something representing a negative attitude toward the overall importance of publishing of UGC in print.

In the past, the publication of diverse facts and stories was helpful to develop the idea of a democratic society in news culture. However, last century’s end editors defined the news within a business context, in order to maintain or increase their profits (Nuttal et al, 2011, p15). Jay