A fight to survive
.. Will traditional media
disappear ?
Nowadays, it's normal to
see young-agers using businessmen's telecommunications devices, blackberry as
an example, as a way of communicating by sending and receiving jocks, soft news
or even hard news happened just seconds ago. While in the past, at least for
the past 15-20 years, transferring information was not as easy as it is today,
where you have to wait until the morning to read the newspaper, or for a
certain time to watch or listen for a news bulletin. This obvious change made
by the technology, which is still making many changes on the different fields
of our daily life. One of the most effected fields is the media, where a new
media such as electronic newspapers, e-books, social communicating sites and
devices appeared. This change leads to a very interesting debate and a huge
conflict between two groups of people on the issue of the fight between the new
media and the traditional media.
The first group thinks that
new media, especially the online versions of newspapers and books, will replace
the traditional media or the printed media in general. The main reason of their
point of view indicating that modern technology is providing more windows of
entertainment and relaxation. For example, people can read books or newspapers
by an electronic version on their laptops or mobile phones. Furthermore, they
can get updated news of what is happening just few seconds on the other side of
the planet, while the traditional media can be late because of the process it
has to follow. Another reason of their view that new media is cheap. For
instance, the internet can provide an access to as much as books, newspapers
and sites the user want to read at the same time, so that means saving money or
not wasting money for buying too many paper books or journals.
On the other side, the
second group runs against the above point of view. They indicate that the traditional
media will stand forever because of its unique nature. For example, when the
television was invented, all people said that radio will disappear because of
the new face of media, but it never happened. It is the same situation now,
where technology is bringing a new face for the media. Those people stands on
what Marshall McLuhan (1964) said, "medium is the message", which
identifies that each media has its own nature of providing information, so it
is not easy to eliminate the traditional media. In addition, there is another reason for this
group, as they believe that traditional media is a safe method while new media
can cause some health problems like headache and decreasing the power of the
eyes.
In my experience, I feel
that traditional media will not be replaced, but the number of its audiences
will decrease as the number of the readers through the internet will increase.
I'm sure that the skills used in traditional media, for example; reporting, is
still needed by the new media developers with coordination of some new technologies.
Here, new media is a way of delivering information as fast as possible, but
sometimes it is not reliable! A study made by Pew Research Center in 2010 shows
that most reporting even on the internet still comes from traditional
journalists, by around 59 % and the rest is for the other people.
In conclusion, I would like
to say that the fight between people who support the idea of replacement of the
new media and people who do not, will continue, because of the nature of this
debate. It reminds me of the issue of who are better, men of women?!!.
Zuweina Salem Said AL-Busaidi
