Pew Research Releases State of the News Media Report for 2012
- Media Council Hawaii
- Mar 19, 2012
- 2 min read
For media wonks like us, a gift has arrived in the mail today: The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism State of the News Media Report 2012. Authored by Amy Mitchell and Tom Rosenstiel, the report is a rich trove of information about the current state of new media, as well as media industries.
“Our analysis suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives,” PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel said in a release. “But it remains unclear who will benefit economically from this growing appetite for news.”
One the first pass of the study, we've pulled out a few interesting bits and placed them below. But since there's much to discover in this deep document, we encourage everyone with an interest in today's media to have a look, and share you thoughts about trends you're seeing in Hawaii's news media.
Immediately in the overview, Mitchell and Rosenstiel cut to the chase on how technologies are influencing markets:
In 2011, the digital revolution entered a new era. The age of mobile, in which people are connected to the web wherever they are, arrived in earnest. More than four in ten American adults now own a smartphone. One in five owns a tablet. New cars are manufactured with internet built in. With more mobility comes deeper immersion into social networking.
Where audiences are also continues a shift towards the web.
Other major trends include:
As many as 100 newspapers are expected in coming months to join the roughly 150 dailies that have already moved to some kind of digital subscription model.
The emerging landscape of community news sites is reaching a new level of maturity — and facing new challenges.
Mobile may be leading to a deeper experience with news than on the desktop/laptop computer.
News viewership on television grew in unexpected venues.
More news outlets will move to digital subscriptions in 2012 — as a matter of survival.
As privacy becomes an even larger issue, the impact on news is uncertain.
Also a major trends is that social media are important, but not overwhelming drivers of news, at least not yet. This is idea expanded upon in a Special Report: What Facebook and Twitter mean for news. “News organizations have a big opportunity in the social and mobile realms,” PEJ Deputy Director Amy Mitchell said in a release. “But they will need to do a better job than they did in the desktop realm of understanding audience behavior and developing effective technology and revenue models.”
The report also gives readers a good look at just who will be looking at 'effective media and revenue models'. The section entitled, Who Owns the News Media, links to a database with ownership figures across a variety of platforms. We'll be looking closely at local TV station ownership and viewer statistics in preparation for our political advertising project this summer, so stay tuned for more details.
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