Print sales have declined for a number of reasons. The main
reason is the rise in technology and where all newspapers are now accessible;
the internet. With the sudden rise in technology and the internet, majority of
newspaper companies such as The Guardian and Daily Mail have posted all their
daily papers on their sites along with the front page being posted on the BBC
site. This makes all newspapers easier to access and also more available,
whilst being convenient to the public. All readers can now access them whenever
they want without having to go out and pay for the papers, and instead, just
look it up on the internet, assuming they have an internet connection or
signal. Although it is cheaper for yourself to access the papers as you don’t
have to actually purchase each daily paper, all paper companies ask for readers
to subscribe to their paper in order for them to survive. This could also give
their subscribers various perks that a casual reader wouldn’t gain.
Using the internet as your newspaper source is a positive.
This is because all readers can comment on various articles and have conversations
with other readers online to gain more opinions on the specific article. Although
this can occasionally can start arguments on different opinions, people do find
this very useful and informative to understand the full picture. However, using
the internet to access your daily news does have its negatives. These negatives
include requiring an internet connection in order to access your favourite
papers, losing stories due to more recent stories overwriting them, more
information is given by print newspapers and may also give physical eye strain.
The biggest negative for the rise in online newspapers is that the biggest age
for reading newspapers is the elderly, average of 65. Due to the elderly not
well advanced with technology, they still prefer reading physical print
newspapers compared to our online copies. But because the amount of print
papers decreasing by the year, elderly cannot read their beloved newspapers.
So, all newspaper companies are slowly losing their audience due to this
change.
Citizen Journalism (the collection, dissemination, and
analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of
the Internet) has made the mass media affect the traditional way for reporting
and understanding news because of the audience reacting different to stories.
For example, when there was a violent outbreak in Turkey during 2013, news
stories over the internet had an outbreak over the comment and reported making
fun and lying over the stories told. This brought controversy over whether or
not information given by the general public was necessary because of these
sensitive areas being derided.
According to studies, The Daily Mail had a decrease of 55% of
print papers sold during 2000 since 1960. In comparison, online newspapers,
which were first introduced in 2000, have been preferred by 55% of the public,
that stated they prefer reading the daily news online rather than a print.
