What encompasses Traditional Media exactly? And how do we encapsulate a multitudinous term such as New Media?
Traditional media or more commonly referred to as Old Media are tools used to disseminate information, before the advent of “New Media” channels. Examples are printed publications, radio networks and television broadcasts.
“New media” au contraire is an all encompassing term for any form of communication made possible from proliferations in Information Technologies. This includes information transmitted through web sites, online communities, blogs, social media networking portals & DVD & CD ROM media.
In today’s multi-faceted media landscape, consumers’ media consumption constitutes of a staple diet of both traditional media sources & new media channels.
However, much akin to changing taste preferences, there has been a paradigm shift in consumer interests from solely acquiring news and current information from the traditional media sources and supplementing these with new media sources like the internet, to mainly getting the information off the internet as it is more current and reliable.
New Media offers novel channels which allow the convenient and greatly expedited access of information. In the 2008 findings of an article released by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, it has been proven that 37% of the public prefer to retrieve information pertaining to current affairs from the internet.
New media channels also allow consumers to conveniently cross reference materials and check for reliability and credibility of articles. In 1998, for example, 42% of those who could rate CNN gave it the highest rating for credibility (four on a scale from one to four). However in 2008, this statistic fell to 30% only.
The New Media Ecosystem is an interlinked network of online communities, blogs, journalists and various sources of information (news network sites, global economy markets etc…). Information between countries is transmitted almost instantaneously & we have become part of this global network and it is therefore imperative that Public Relations Professionals or Marketing Professionals are well versed with these New Media Channels in order to stay relevant.
The far reaching prowess of utilising New Media Channels is incontestable. According to the Universal McCann (a global media agency with 150 offices) findings, there was an astounding 184 million bloggers registered worldwide. Nielsen published recent statistics on overall online shopping trends; over 875 Million consumers shop online and the percentage of Internet Shoppers has increased by 40% since 2006.
However, Traditional Media’s popularity, although debilitated by its more sophisticated counter-part, has not lost its pervasiveness amongst consumers. The willingness to pay for offline content is far greater than the willingness to pay for online content. In a survey conducted by KPMG LLP (U.K), 99% of its thousands of respondents had engaged in Traditional Media sources for information (watching the news on television, reading daily newspapers, listened to the radio etc…). Online content presents a much greater appeal to consumers as information is readily available as and when you would require it and it is free however only 11% from the same survey were willing to pay for content they acquired from New Media Sources.
With the advent of Web 2.0, P.R professionals, Marketers, Business Organisations are faced with this problem of remoulding their current business models. Past tactics of releasing advertisements in Newspapers or commercials on television would not suffice. By assessing New Media portals, organisations are able to directly disseminate information to their consumers and unlike before, where the marketing models were pretty much a one-way stream of communication, by engaging social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Digg, the true meaning of communication is realised. Consumers are able to provide their feedback, show appreciation, and find out about recent developments with regards to the brands they are interested in.
Organisations, depending on how proactive or committed they are to maintaining communications between them and their target audience, are able to engage in exchanges over these social networking sites. These exchanges are more sincere, effective, and again, depending on how committed these organisations are, can amplify customers’ loyalty to the brand.
It may be a cumbersome and expensive process to remould one’s business model, especially one that has existed through decades and have ingrained systems of operations that have proved to be successful before. However it is necessary to utilise New Media Channels with Old Media ones to aid organisations globally stay relevant, more effective in communicating with heir target group and ultimately generate greater revenue in today’s more sophisticated Information Technology climate.
