For this essay, I anticipate that the digitalization of the journalism industry has been for the best and has been one of the best technical advances in a long time. I expect to find out how technical advances has had an impact on journalists lives and how they have had to adapt to accommodate their audience, either this been online or in magazines. I also anticipate to find out that people have found it a hard transition this not just been the journalist but the reader, the fact that they have had to learn how to get their information from somewhere else.
The reason I have chosen to research this is because I think this was a difficult thing for journalists and their audiences to deal with and overcome. I want to learn and understand what journalists had to do and how they had to adapt to draw people online to read and see there copy. This is going to help me in my own work by finding out what draws people to online publications.
Concurring to my first academic source Bradshaw and Rohumaa, “some fear that ‘traditional’ skills of news gathering and news writing will disappear, and that technology will become more important that stories” (2011, pg2). This is stating that tradition ways of gathering and writing copy is going to be over took by technology, as this was written in 2011 it has happened now we have gotten to 2017. This quote depends on what you as the reader interoperate the word “traditional” as, I see it as pen and paper and going out on the street to find the story but others might see it as asking lots of personal questions to get enough information to draw in their readers. I asked Stacey Rhodes (18) a journalism student what she thought. She said “I think that the traditional skills of new writing haven’t changed as much as the gathering side of journalism have, you just need to be carful what your writing because it will stay on there for a long time.” This quote links to my hypothesis and supports it because it states that technology will become more important along with online media.
According to Lareau which is a cultural source, “All this digitization has meant a move away from equipment-based jobs” (2017). This quote is stating that because of the digitalization movement the lives of some journalistic roles have been compromised and they have had to adapt to continue with there careers by keeping up with the technical advances. This backs up my hypothesis because it shows that people have had to adapt and in some cases be laid off work.
Lareau also said “The fact that digital equipment is easier to use has led to new expectations of how we work, and blurred job titles and job descriptions. Citizen journalism has allowed the numbers of reporters and photographers to be lower. The growth in numbers of amateur columnists and opinion writers is staggering” (2017). This quote suggests that the industry has needed less and less highered reporters because people have now got smart phones and cameras, due to the advances in technology, so readily available to capture the story and post it straight to the internet. This quote also suggests that a journalist doesn’t only now do the writing or just the sourcing. Where this quote states “blurred job titles” it means that they don’t have a specific job or skill, they do everything and anything because if they don’t the journalist is going to be left behind. All this suggests that the digitalization movement is better for the industry but not for the individual journalist. This quote backs up and further supports my hypothesis because it explains how both citizens/readers have help the journalist and the journalism insdusty.
Moving on to my next academic source. According to Foust, “on the internet, more than with any other mediums, people have the power to choose the information they want when they want, retrieve it how they want and where they want” (2005). This quote suggests that the reader has all the power when it comes to what is going to read online, this makes it hard for the journalist because if a piece of copy is put in a newspaper its in and there’s nothing the reader can do about it but when a journalist post a piece of there work online the reader can choose to go no where near it and therefore the journalist getting no hits. This quote supports my hypothesis because it explains that the reader is the one in control and that the journalist is having to adapt to capture the attention of the reader to get their hits.
Foust also said “the internet provides the potential for a greater level of audience involvement in the journalistic process” (2005). This quote further backs up the previous point by saying that the audience have had to adapt from just reading the copy to been able to adapt the copy that’s already written and add extra.
My final source is from a newspaper. According to Krotoski, “The web’s effect on news reporting is considered the most clear evidence that this is a revolutionary technology: news editors – and in some cases, the governments that they observe – are no longer the gatekeepers to information because costs of distribution have almost completely disappeared.” This quote suggests that people already know what’s going on within the news before the reporter has time to use the tradition methods to report the same news. This is, as the quote says, the revolution of technology. This links and supports my hypothesis because it talks about the technical advances and how this has had a great impact on both the journalist and the reader.
Overall, from doing my research I have found out that my suggested hypothesis was correct by analysing quotes from both my academic and cultural sources. From books that talked about “traditional skills” and “evolving” to journals talking about digitalization, I have also included people’s opinion on the matter. The only point in my hypothesis that I have been unable to find out is; how people have found the transition when digitalization took place.
Research Sources –
Foust, J.C. (2005) Online journalism: Principles and practices of news for the web : Holcomb Hathaway Publishing.
Krotoski (2011) What effect has the internet had on journalism? What effect has the internet had on journalism? [online] 1/2/17 at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism
Lareau (2017) The impact of digital technology on media workers: Life has completely changed [online] 31/1/17 at http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/impact-digital-technology-media-workers-life-has-completely-changed
Rohumaa, L. and Bradshaw, P. (2011) The online journalism handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the digital age: Prentice Hall.
ReecePayling 
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