Based on the article, The Fallacy of the ‘Print is Dead’ Meme, Martin Langeveld, a former newspaper publisher and current consultant, used to believe that ‘Print is still King’ and that print-based media, for example, the newspaper is never going to perish. However, as time passes he began to realise that the death of print is becoming noisy. Langeveld does not deny that the reliance of people on print will decrease and on the other hand believes the amount of digital and online audience for newspaper would be gradually increasing. Also, he stresses that newspaper firms should understand this shift and redesign their firms from print to digital newspaper enterprises.
According to Walsh (2006), print based text is systematic and sequential where readers mostly follows the path while multimodal texts are non-sequential, giving readers more choice and opportunities to interact. Does this mean that print should be replaced by multimodal texts? The answer would be not possible. This is because texts and prints are interrelated modes where picture could mean a thousand words and words alone cannot show a clear view picture. Hence, the idea of having a digital newspaper enterprise is not surprising. One clear advantage that digital newspaper would bring to the audience is latest news updates. For instance, printed newspaper will only be able to describe a football game that was played today in tomorrows’ paper but digital will bring us live updates. In addition, Noci (1999) stated that the advantage of hypertext is that it allows readers to get a clearer reproduction thinking style instead of just the way of saying it in words. Also, he agreed to digital publishing of newspapers, books and publishing as to publish a printed job would require time, cost and the usage of paper.
Below are the difference between a live update on a football game
a) Live updates that shows details of a football match
This picture shows the details of a live football match, from minutes of a goal is scored to the number of cards shown.
b) Newspaper article by reporter on a football match
This picture shows what has happened in a football game YESTERDAY which could have been acquired through live updates as shown above.
Another man who agrees to prints’ survival is Hwang (cited in Stone, 2004), Samsung’s Chief Executive Officer, where he stated that no matter how digital technology advances, the printed newspapers will not perish. Instead, he is certain that the newspapers will adapt to the shifts in technology. In my opinion, I agree with Hwang and Langevald that printed newspapers will not lose its existence as it can adapt to the ever-changing technology. Although more and more gadgets are coming into innovated, having a hardcopy of a newspaper with a cup of coffee in the morning can never be replaced.
References:
Noci, DJ 1999, Digital Publishing: Electronic Books, Journals and Newspapers on the Internet, Digital Publishing and Education Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford.
Stone, P 2004, “How Newspapers Are Already Taking Advantage of the Digital Revolution. It’s Not Just the Internet But Mobile, Too”, Stone & Associates Media Solutions, viewed 2nd June 2010, http://www.astonesthrow.ch/analysis_chip.htm
Walsh, M 2006,” ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p.24-37
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