Brave New World - The future of journalism

The year I was born only 0.3% of the global population had access to the internet. Even so, I am an internet native. I remember a life of unplugging your home phone to play slow flash animation games online. I remember crossing my fingers and hoping for a successful connection, listening for that signature sound of the internet connecting that is so close to instinctive that it is probably playing through your head as you read this but future generations will never understand, but I do not remember a life before assessment research was done on the internet.

By the time the time I hit high school more than 20% of the global population had internet access. Social status was dictated by your Myspace profile, we laughed out loud at lolcatz, Tom was all of our friends, Wikipedia was just starting to break loose and all Chris wanted was for us to leave Britney alone. The year was 2007 and it's safe to say the full potential of the internet had not yet been realised.

Another seven years later and internet access has increased to touch 40% of the global population (and more than 80% of Australia), and I am at university studying what the misinformed masses refer to as the "dying profession" of journalism. Now, not only do I furrow my brow at the suggestion of studying from text books but most of my class resources are posted on a virtual blackboard.

Since the time of my birth global internet saturation has increased by 40% and remains on an upward incline. In 2013, time spend with digital media among US adults surpassed time spent with TV for the first time, according to emarketer. The internet has revolutionised everything from the way we order pizza to the way we obtain our news.

Journalism and 'new media'
This record breaking adaptation of the new media format has seen a vast increase in what we call citizen journalism and a cultural shift towards obtaining news information from new media sources. The main concerns created by this shift centralise around the ideas that the news industry will become profitless as new media engulfs traditional media as the public turn to free news alternatives, and concerns for the quality of journalism if citizen journalism were to win out over professional journalism.

While this shift is certainly making its mark on the print and broadcast media market and has lead many of my well meaning friends to warn me of the dangers of a "dying industry". The truth to this myth however is that journalism is an integral part of our society and it will always exist in one form or another. Even with shrinking newsrooms as copyrighters, subeditors, editors, photographers and the like are forced to multitask, there will always be a place in the market for quality journalism.

One important factor to remember when trying to assure yourself that the internet will not wipe out traditional media entirely is the idea of 'multiscreening'. Multiscreening is just as it sounds and, in our privileged lives, happens all the time. People are no longer occupied with just one source of entertainment/communication. We now sit in front of the television, emailing/tweeting/blogging/facebooking on our laptop and texting on our smartphones. Q1 2014 Australian Multi-Screen Report’ by OzTAM, Regional TAM and Nielsen, 2014 reports that 67% of internet connected Australians are multiscreening while watching broadcast TV at least once a month and that teenagers and 25- 34 year olds were the most likely to multiscreen while watching TV. This tells us that rather than broadcast television becoming an outdated median, the way we are watching it is evolving. This is true for the way we absorb all of our news including print journalism. Journalists are now looking to the future for new and initiative ways to present news utilising the latest technologies and research.

Over the next nine weeks I'll be investigating the impact that new media are having on the news market, how the spread of news is being altered by this shift, the technologies that are being developed to cater to this shift and the impact that this shift is having on the quality of journalism being found in print, broadcast and online media. Today the moral of the story is that journalism is an evolving artform and won't look anything like it does today in 50 years time, just as today it doesn't look anything like it looked 50 years ago, and that is okay. Change is okay.