On the Nieman Lab media portal, Shalabh Upadhyay (he is the founder of NEWJ in India) asked a question: Can journalism survive in a post-news world?
The editor of eCCO Magazine would like to draw readers’ attention to the answer to the question.
Can journalism survive in a post-news world?
“In a world of surplus information, news as a product is fast losing its relevance.”
The world of information has witnessed transformational changes in the past two decades, both in terms of the pace of exchange and quantum. Although access to information has been gradually increasing throughout our collective history, the sheer magnitude of change over the past decade alone dwarfs anything witnessed before. Just between 2010 to 2019, the world added 1.9 billion new internet users, and that number will only increase as internet access evolves into a fundamental right, not a mere service.
This changing dynamic poses several existential challenges for journalists and media organizations, foremost among them being whether journalism can move beyond news and provide value in a “post-news” world. In a world of surplus information, news as a product is fast losing relevance. News has always been a subset of the larger information ecosystem — a category tag that journalists and publishers created to highlight relevancy in a finite information world.
The penetration of technology into our daily lives gives each individual an opportunity to both create and present the world around them instantaneously. This has led to a rapid increase in both information collection and consumption. Individuals and social groups, who once relied on journalists to provide them with a daily dose of information, are cutting out the middleman and getting their “news” directly from the proverbial horse’s mouth through social media platforms. Now, every smartphone user has the ability to be their own media outlet through platforms like Twitter and Instagram. The pandemic has served as a catalyst for this change in behavior.
Click here to read the full article: Can journalism survive in a post-news world?
Source: Nieman Lab (The Nieman Foundation’s mission “to promote and elevate the standards of journalism”)