Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Newspapers: The decline in print media

Our final topic in A Level Media s newspapers: an industry that has changed hugely in the last 20 years due to the impact of the internet.

We now know that this won't be coming up in the final exam but it's still something we have to cover and could be very useful for a synoptic question on either the Magazine CSPs or Teen Vogue/OSP.

Notes from the lesson

In the lesson, we looked at the history of the newspaper industry and the decline in the last 20 years:

The decline of newspapers

In the last 20 years, the newspaper industry has faced a sharp decline due to the rise of the internet.

In 2003, almost 30 million newspapers were sold in the UK every day. By 2017 that was down to 12.4 million (source: Ofcom). 

Newspapers have traditionally made their money in two ways: through the cover price and by selling advertising. With so much news available for free online, audiences are not buying newspapers so both these sources of income have been decimated.

The Wall Street Journal produced a short video demonstrating how the industry has changed in the last 100 years:



Once you've watched the video and considered the decline in the industry, work through the blog tasks below.


Blog tasks: The decline in print media

Part 1: Ofcom report into news consumption 2019

Read this Ofcom 2019 report on the consumption of news in the UK. Note down the key statistics and changes that Ofcom highlight and answer the following questions:

1) Look at the key findings from the report on pages 2-3. How do UK adults generally get their news? 

2) Read the overall summary for adults on pages 7-8. What do you notice about the changing way adults are getting their news?

3) Look at the summary of platforms used on page 13. What do you notice about newspapers and how has it changed since 2018?

4) Now look at the demographic summary for news platforms on page 15. What audience demographic groups (e.g. age, social class) are most and least likely to read newspapers?

5) Read Section 3 on cross-platform news consumption (page 20). What newspaper brands can you find in the list of most popular news sources across platforms?

6) Now turn to Section 6 focusing on newspapers (page 33). How has the circulation of national newspapers decreased between 2010 and 2018?

7) What are the most-used newspaper titles?

8) What are the most popular titles when print and online figures are combined (look at page 38)?

9) How does the i compare to the Daily Mail?

10) Now study the demographic details for our two CSP newspapers on page 39. What is the breakdown of the Daily Mail audience and the i audience? What differences do you notice?

11) Read section 7 of the report: news consumption via social media (pages 40-52). Pick out three statistics from this section that you think are interesting and explain why.

12) Look at the summary of readers' attitudes for newspapers on page 76. What statements for Daily Mail readers tend to agree with?


Part 2: Factsheet - The death of print media

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 165: The death of print media. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or you can find this factsheet online here.

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What has happened to print media in the last 30 years?

2) Why is the Independent newspaper such a good case study for the decline in print media?

3) What was the Independent newspaper famous for?

4) What did the then-owner of the Independent, Evgeny Lebedev, say about the newspaper's digital-only future?

5) How do online newspapers make money?

6) What did the Independent's longest-serving editor Simon Kelner warn regarding the switch to digital?

7) What is the concern with fake news? What does 'post-truth' refer to?

8) What is your view on the decline in print media? Should news be free? Is it a concern that established media brands such as the Independent can no longer afford to exist as a printed newspaper?

Complete for homework if you don't get it finished in the lessons: due date on Google Classroom.

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