The Survival of Newspaper in the Internet Age

Essay, Pages 8 (1977 words)

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Introduction

The printed newspaper has been circulating since the 17th Century. However, the existence of electronic media has change the society perspective towards the printed newspapers. Modern society are beginning to view printed newspapers as a medium that’s been losing its relevance. This paper will argue the importance for printed newspaper to continue its survival in modernization era as society nowadays prefer to read a non-physical news. The non-physical news were considered as a greater medium due to its free multiple sources accessibility.

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However, it is still important for printed newspaper to continue its survival since it has news and information that can be accessed to diverse audience, consider as a daily snapshot of the history, and it is a reliable news sources..

News and information medium that can be accessed by diverse audience. Printed newspaper is a news and information medium that can be accessed by diverse audience. Anyone and anybody can own a newspaper since it was so easy to be obtain.

Printed newspaper can be bought at convenience store and also can be send in front of the door. So it is easy for society to obtain news. It is true online news are an easy access medium too to obtain but it is also known that not everyone can own a smart, tablet or laptop. Electronic devices are on sale with a high price. Those privileges are costly and there were some people that don’t have the money for it.

Internet connection is also may not be available at certain places.

Lack of internet connection will make it impossible for online news to be accessed. Which is why printed newspaper need to be maintained. It is undeniable that online newspaper are preferable because it was an easy access and society can read it from everywhere through electronic devices. A research had said it otherwise, internet services are not provided everywhere (4.1. Advantages of the newspapers over the new media, 2012). There were places where it was hard to gain its services. Online newspaper can only be accessed through electronic devices if only there was an internet connection around. If there was no internet connection, then it will be impossible for one to have accessed to news. There were some rural areas where the internet connection are hard to obtain. People from the non-rural area also will be having a hard time connecting their electronic devices to internet if there was no Wi-Fi or mobile data privileges.

Elderly people will also likely doesn’t have the knowledge to accessed news through internet. Most elderly people will still prefer to read printed newspaper rather than online newspaper. Older generation still prefer to read their news using printed newspaper. The reason for the occurrence was because they have traditionally bought a newspaper over the years and so they do not wish to change their way. Some of them don’t have even the knowledge to look up news from online sources. According to a research, 87 percent of people aged 75 years and over have never been on the internet (No Isolation, 2018, “Why do many seniors have trouble using technology?” para. 1). This was due to back at the old days, internet and modern technology privileges are still not as modern as it is. Mastering new form of technology is often complicated as the elderly have no experience in using technology. The same research had also stated that 77 percent of elderly had reported that they would require assistance were they were trying to use modern gadgets (No Isolation, 2018, “Why do many seniors have trouble using technology?” para. 3). So it will be hard for them to read news through online. Printed newspaper is an easy way for them to gain their daily news. Even though modern technology are easy to navigate but a research had depicted that older citizens generally have a lesser frame of reference to enable them to absorb and learn new set of knowledge. It is safe to say that most of them are having lots of difficulty to access to online news and that’s the reason why huge amount of senior citizens still use printed newspaper as a medium for gaining news.

Online newspaper are also hard to be accessed by the society due to pop ups and frustrating advertisement. Those pop ups and advertisement often show up in the middle of nowhere anytime (4.1. advantages and disadvantages of online newspaper, 2018, para.8). It happen when our electronic devices are connected to the internet. These type of occurrence are a hassle for the citizens to read up the news since the pop ups and advertisement often take half of the screen from the electronic devices. Some even take up the whole screen. To close the pop ups and advertisement, one need to navigate the screen properly to make sure the advertisement doesn’t bring one to another website that can cause one to accidently lose the news one was reading. That could take times. It is undeniable that one could avoid the pop ups and advertisement. It can be done by saving the news offline but one need to disconnect its electronic devices from the internet. That will make one to not get the latest news because online news need internet connection to refresh. It is different with printed newspaper. Everyone could read it without any obstacle after buying it. The newspaper publishing company will always make sure that society will always get the latest updated news every morning.

Daily Snapshot of the History

Printed newspaper is a daily snapshot of the history. Articles that was printed on newspaper can be kept and used as a references in the future. Printed newspaper articled are often seek by researchers as a source of evidence to strengthen up their researches or studies. Society often seek newspaper articles for information since newspaper will likely to provide information that happen all around the world. Newspaper articles is also a valuable reliable source of history that can be use time to time as long as it was preserve correctly. As the age of modernization has arrived, some had consider the internet as a valuable archive. Many articles of the past event are written on the internet. However, articles in the internet can’t be consider as good reference to investigate a certain event that had happen in the past. Historical event news on the internet can be edited and created by anyone and everyone to spread propaganda. Articles on the internet are editable. Website are easily build too. There some website on the internet that have claim to be updating a legit news but it is actually the other way around. There are some non-responsible individual that had created a website to spread news for its own selfishness. For instance to claim attention and money from it. They often manipulate the past historical events to make it more interesting even though it was fake to begin with to gain reader or to cause misinformation among society. Printed newspaper can’t be manipulate. This is because it was physical and distributed in a large scale. Old printed newspaper is also kept as an archive for future in museum and library so it is impossible to edit it or fake the historical event. So it is importance for printed newspaper to be maintained to avoid important historical event being misinformed, misunderstand in the future or even being manipulated by certain individual.

News on the internet may disappear if the website that are providing the news were shut down. Owning a website means that one need to pay for it. The cost could be very hefty. The cost range needed to hosting a website could range from $10 a month to more than $100 for a small website (Parr, 2015, “The cost of website maintenance”, para.11). The prices stated is only for the small website. A company that are providing online news use a huge website that need lots of money to maintain. Failure in doing that may lead to the website being shut down and disappear. So the news will be disappearing along with the website. It could be troubling for the people who want to use newspaper for educational purposes. This is because news often provide many historical important strings of event. The disappearance of the website can be troubling for researcher since most use news as reference for their researches. It is different with printed newspaper. It is a physical item made of paper and ink that can be preserve to be use in ahead of time. It is true that paper can very well rot and disappear too but there a few method that can be used to preserve a printed newspaper using microfilm. Newspaper that are preserves using microfilm last for a long time. At the Harold B. Lee Library, each roll of microfilm kept there contains hundreds of pages of old newspapers (Olsen, Newspaper captures snapshots of history, 2005, para.1). Printed newspaper that are preserve correctly can be used as a future reference for researcher. Maintaining printed newspaper is important for future researcher who want to use printed newspaper to strengthen up their research.

Reliable News Sources

News that are published online especially on social media can’t be label as a fully trustable medium to gain news. This is because anyone and everyone can write or published news even though they don’t have an accessed to a trustable sources. Internet users mostly write based on what they have heard not seen or investigate. This kind of matter can lead the society to misunderstand the news. Printed newspaper had to go through a few complicated process before the news were published to the publics to ensure its competence. So society will likely get the most relevant news through printed newspaper.

It is true that some printed newspaper had created its own website to provide legit online news, but it is undeniable that people especially young people prefer to get theirs daily dose of news from social media. Bernama had reported that many people prefer to get their information through social media rather than genuine news sites and this makes them increasingly vulnerable to fraud and fake news, according to Cyber Security Malaysia (CSM). (The Star Online, 2019, “CSM: Malaysians ignore journalism, prefer social media, and are falling victim to fraud, fake news”, para. 1) So to avoid them to get news only from social media which a source of root for fake news, the printed newspaper need to be maintained so news can be compare whether it is legit or not. If the printed newspaper are not maintained it hard for people to compare news. This is because sometimes online editions news will leave out content from the print newspaper’s regular edition due to content from the online is already overflowing, some smaller news items may never make it on the web, leaving online readers slightly less informed than printed newspaper reader (“Print Newspapers vs. Online Editions: The Pros and Cons”, 2015).

Conclusion

The print edition of a newspaper are important and need to be sustained even though the world is evolving. This is because the print edition of a newspaper had its own part in providing news to the society. Even though there are social medias, blogs and even the online edition from the newspaper company itself, but still we can’t denied that the print edition is still better since it provide news that can’t be provide through the internet since the online edition of a news had its website page limitation. It also can’t be ignore that there are still individuals that prefer the print edition of a newspaper due to habits and unavoidable reason such as hard to access to the internet connection to gain news. Due to all the listed reason, maintaining the print edition of a newspaper will bring lots of benefit to the modern society.