As the landscape changes in South Africa, and across the world, the media world has never been more tested. Many will eventually come to grips with the fact that the real battle is not about being first with the news. The battle is about news credibility and the increasing consumer demands on news supply. If the media is the marketplace of news delivery, it is in dire need of ideas to save itself from a proliferation of news platforms. News validity and credibility is under fire, as new immediate sources are found via increased accessible platforms for news dissemination.
This then begs the question, what is the role of the journalist? With user based news (think of the Mozambican national dragged behind a police van breaking world-wide on cell phone footage) we are vastly entering an era of news consumption which is interactive, and involved. The potential impact on traditional news is staggering.
It is not new news that these changes have resulted in precipitous plunges in circulation for major newspapers around the globe. The bottom-line is that viewer needs and behaviour in terms of news consumption is changing dramatically. New platforms are trending in terms of accessing fresh, relevant content, evident in the "news snacking" culture of the UK- but more importantly and with increasing relevance the viewer's definition of news, here in South Africa, is becoming more personalised, more encompassing and less ring-fenced than before, and increasingly viewers are constructing clear delineations between what is news, and what is newsworthy.
Increased news access across various social and mobile platforms have left many national broadcasters reeling with how to cope and adapt with a new viewer who demands instant access, tailored content and social talk value. Drawing from research case studies on news consumption behaviour in evolved markets (UK) and our own work in evolving markets (South Africa) the challenge is to understand what future behaviour in terms of news consumption could look like. What are media companies currently doing? And more importantly, what should they be doing?
