Changing media scenarios 

Witoubou Newmai

For a long time, the efficiency in physical marketing or transport prowess also determined the positions of media houses to a great degree. But now, with the advent of the digital era, we begin to notice so many inverted or otherwise positional scenarios of the media houses. As such, there is a fascinating trend of how small media houses begin to feel big. Reversely speaking, we also notice how those big media houses have started to feel they are losing the monopoly of the ‘big-ness’.

We will no longer see that trend soon, where media houses in big places (cities) are big and those media houses in small places (small towns) are small, as so many new determining factors have come into play.

As media platforms in numerous digital ‘characters’ are spreading out their products in the most convenient ways and doing it efficiently, the charms of the ‘big-ness’ of many great traditional newspapers are also being killed. It is not that these great newspapers do not participate in the new trend. They do so, but their standouts find the challenges of the shoves of new charms.

In short, the gaping hole of high octane international or ‘national’ newspapers and the perceived insipid ‘local’ or regional newspapers is being attended by the new charms of digital operations. As more and more veteran journalists are switching to new-found fast media platforms, as demanded by growing keyboard readers, we can no longer deny the change.

As the prevailing trend intensifies to infinity, whether a media house is in the smallest town or in the biggest city, such a factor no longer determines to be in the game. Such is the way of the time that the ‘best’, whether in a small media organization or otherwise, is heard to prominence instantly. The days of ‘feeling small’ working in a small media organization is going to be considered very soon as “those-were-the-days”.

With this unfurling trend, and from now on, the question of sustenance, profits, impacts, reputation, prominence and dominance for a media house, even in the global context, is to consider innovations and contents. 

The drive towards these new charms is intensified by the growing number of ‘couch-potatoes’ (this time the reference is not television watchers, but to social media users). Since new forms of ‘newspapers’ are just a press-away for gadget-handy generations and supplemented by social media platforms, any news item that carries a mass appeal can hit the global zenith in minutes’ time. As such has become our time, no one finds it hard to be unheard, and no one can feel small anymore. But one issue remains: as of any other situation, this trend has also merits and demerits. Identify the merits and make the best out of them.