[BM013-3-1] MASS MEDIA TO MULTIMEDIA
Individual AssignmentUC1F1103MP
[TP025217] TRAN DINH TRUONG THINH
Lecturer : Miss RAHILAH BINTI AHMAD
Due date : 1st Dec 2011
Table of Contents***
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Cover Page 01
I, The history of newspapers 03
II, Factors contributed to the adoption, growth and acceptance of newspapers 05
III, A challenging time, is press industry dying? 07
IV, Journalism, an honorable profession 09
Reference 10
Marking Scheme 11
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I, The History Of Newspapers
***
hat is news? Barrett and Rantanen (1998, p.1) said that “News represented the
reformulation of information as a commodity gathered and distributed for the three
purposes of political communication, trade and pleasure”. To put it simply, news is anything that
interests a large number of people and has never brought to attention before. Among the media
being used to produce, distribute and present news, newspaper is considered as one of the most
popular and oldest media forms.
W
The history of newspaper begins its very first page in 1690 when Benjamin Harris
published the first American newspaper, Publick Occurrences both Foreign and Domestick. But
the paper was shut down by Puritan officials of the colony right after issuing an article related to
an affair between the King of France and his son’s wife.
In 1704, Boston Newsletter was put out by a local postmaster named John Campbell. By
strongly supporting British Empire, the paper was rejected by the audience since it lacked of
interesting and sensitive items.
A few years later, James Franklin published another Boston paper called New England
Courant. And later it was taken over by James’ brother, Benjamin. Under Ben’s leadership, the
paper soon gained its leading position in the society. In 1729, he stated the Pennsylvania Gazette,
the most successful colonial newspaper during this time. Thanks to his endless commitment,
journalism achieved a memorable step in the history and was considered as an honorable
profession.
During the Revolutionary War, there was an increasingly large number in the
newspapers. The so-called “political press” began to emerge in the society. During this time,
most of the newspapers were partisan, propagating views of a particular party, or entity. In 1777,
the Continental Congress assigned Mary Katherine Goddard, publisher of Maryland Journal to
print the first official copies of the Declaration of Independence.
From 1790 to 1833, the constitution of the United States marked another achievement of
the journalism with the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom
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of speech or of the press”. The newspapers’ target during this time was not only the majority of
people in the society but also the minority groups. Freedom Journal, for example, was the first
one that served the concerns and interests of the black, reflecting serious instabilities in the US
itself, such as: unequal treatment, social gap, sex bias, slavery, etc.
Due to the rapid growing of the press, the year 1830 was marked as the birth of the mass
newspaper (Vivian 2011, pp. 83-84) by the manufacture of a steam-powered press that could
produce 4000 copies per hour. It allowed increasing the number of copies while offering a more
affordable way for both of the publishers and audience.
The penny press period began in 1883 with the launch of New York Sun. The paper was
sold for only a penny. The owner of it, Benjamin Day, mainly focused on local news, such as
sex, violence, and human-interest stories. After the success of the Sun, there were various
number of penny newspapers being launched. Among of them were New York Herald in 1835
(James Gordon Bennett), New York Tribune in 1841 (Horace Greeley) and the New York Times
in 1851 (Henry Raymond).
When the Civil War came in 1884, a new method of delivering news came on the scene,
it was called lightning news, allowed eager readers to get news through the use of telegraph. This
period also marked the rise of a new convention in writing news, the inverted pyramid. It was
considered as one of the most efficient in development of the press because it allowed readers to
learn what was most important at a glance. Also, the method helped editors to fit stories into the
limited confines of a page.
However, in the 20th century, the press industry faced a general decrease in the number of
daily newspaper even though circulation and profits went up. So what happened? There were
many explanations but the most relevant and acceptable was the cost of new technology (which
was too much for many marginal papers), smaller-circulation papers found it hard to compete
with major ones in term of generating revenue from advertisement, and the great impact from the
Great Depression in 1930s. The gloomy economy knocked down those marginally profitable
newspapers which were unable to make profits. The total income dropped about 20 percent and
more than 66 dailies went under in this decade (Dominick 2011, p. 87).
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II, Factors Contributed To The Acceptance, Adoption, and Growth Of Newspapers
***
ow, let’s take a look at the factors that contributed to the acceptance, adoption, and
growth of newspapers. As being mentioned before, the task of newspaper is passing along
information about everything from wars and economics conditions to social customs and human
interest features. That is the main root explained the growth of newspaper. Looking back to the
history, before the age of printing, royal edicts, police regulations and important events, such as
the birth and marriages of princes, war news, treaties of peace and alliance were communicated
to the public by the town crier. This could be considered as one the first forms of delivering
news. Hence it is doubtless to say the invention of printing gave wings to the news. We had
gained a big step which provided us an easier way to adopt information.
N
The 16th century was full of religious wars in Germany, France and the Low Countries; of
formidable invasion of the Turks in Eastern Europe; of voyages of discoveries or commercial
enterprise. Hence news from distant countries was an object of curiosity among all classes and
the rapid and regular spread of news became a public necessity. The big books, too long to write
and especially too long to be read, gave place to little tracts which were easy to spread.
In 19th century, the industrial revolutions, which totally changed all aspects of American life
and society, dramatically affected newspaper. With the invention of steam-powered machine,
press industry had gained a memorable achievement, allowed to increase copies of newspaper
and deduct printing costs. It became more and more common among citizens and played as one
of the must-read in their everyday life. Another element that led to the development of the mass
newspaper was the increased level of literacy in the population. Public education in that time was
only meant for upper classes of people on the society, such as royal members, clergy, etc., but
thanks for the democracy process, the public school system then became attainable for the
middle and lower socioeconomic groups. This importantly increased emphasis on education
made newspaper more and more popular in the society, creating a reading habit among people.
Besides, it was again the democracy itself which played as a key unlocked the barriers of
society, therefore led to the remarkable transformation of newspaper. The mass press appeared
during an era that historians call the age of Jacksonian democracy, a political movement toward
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greater democracy. It encouraging equal political policy, and opposed the idea of a “monopoly”
government by elites. In other words, ordinary people were first recognized as a political and
economic force. Property requirement was no longer relevant to voting. The candidates who
collected the most popular vote became presidential electors. “The trend toward democratization
of business and politics fostered the creation of a mass audience responsive to a mass press”
(Vivian 2011, p.84).
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III, A Challenging Time, Is Press Industry Dying?
***
o one deny the dominant role of newspaper nowadays. But the survival question of it is
being pondered. The problem of the newspaper industry became apparent during the
1990s and intensified as the new decade processed. The invention of Internet sure bring human
to the new horizon of knowledge, but ironically, it is also a big threat to press industry.
Readership started a slow but steady decline. Thomas Jefferson once said that “Were it left to me
to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a
government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”. His famous saying stressed the
inevitable part of newspaper in our society. We know what a world without newspaper would be
“more screaming heads and fewer facts”, greater control by the marketing and propaganda
machines and less accountable government. The tracks of history has marked certain milestones
of newspaper, such as the political scandal Watergate during the 1970s, Teapot Dome in 1921,
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, etc. It is the newspaper that keeps the balance of this world.
N
But let’s see what’s happening to the newspaper industry: circulation is dropping, display and
classified ad revenue is dying up, and the industry has experienced an unprecedented wave of
layoffs. People coming home from work turn on television instead of opening a newspaper, and
afternoon newspapers in 1950s and 1960s saw their circulations plunge and profits dry up.
However newspaper still survived. It is true that television surpassed newspaper in terms of
speed, but they could not provide the kind of in-depth news coverage that newspaper could, plus
the convenience of carrying it everywhere. And to compete with television, savvy editors
focused more on visually impact, which made the paper look colorful and appealing, with an
emphasis on clean layouts and graphic design.
But the challenge didn’t stop here. The speedy technological advance in the late 20 th century
exposed human to many other creative inventions besides television. Internet and mobile devices
are one of them. Steadily gaining their leading position, and proving newspaper is no longer the
most popular mean of delivering news. Why? The answer may take pages but to put it in simple
words, online papers have certain advantages over traditional newspapers such as: Printed
newspapers are limited by the newshole, but online papers have no such limitations. Everything
can be accommodated easily; it can be updated continuously; there are no edition deadlines; it is
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the interactive feature which allows readers to share opinions, provide feedbacks to the paper,
and even connects with relatively external sources of information; the experience of readers is
being enhanced by checking photos and videos and audio clips.
So how about the mobile devices? Thanks to internet again, the way of delivering news is
totally changed. When traditional newspapers are being delivered to a place, online news is being
delivered to a person. This is the big difference that focuses more on the so-called individuality.
Everyone has totally control over what they want to read, how they want to read, and when they
want to read.
According to a research of Vivian in the US market, the number of people using mobile
devices to access news on the internet doubled from 2008 to 2009 to about 63 million per month.
Young people are heavy users of cell phones, and these same young people are the ones most
likely to abandon print newspapers. They are keen to what we call multitask orientation, prefer to
do tasks simultaneously. Hence mobile media are exactly helping satisfy young people’s
demand. The future of newspaper seems to be darker when in 2008-2009, Tribune Company
declared bankruptcy, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Rocky Mountain Times, and about 100 other
daily and weekly papers shut down, newspaper advertising revenue dropped an alarming 23
percent, and more were among the bad news of press industry.
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IV, Journalism, An Honorable Profession:
***
hus what does future behold for traditional newspaper? And is it a dying medium? To find
an acceptable answer is not an easy task at all. The challenges from other media are putting
the press industry in the most difficult time ever. However, it is doubtless to say that journalism
is a very honorable profession. Journalists are the people who seeking truth and it is because of
the truth is always being hidden, the history of press has been witnessed countless sacrifices.
According to Reporters Without Borders (a France-based non-government organization that
advocates freedom of the press) there are 58 journalists killed and 170 imprisoned in 2011.
T
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Reference:
***
Book References:
DAN LAGHEY. (2007) Key Themes In Media Theories. Open University Press, New York.
JEAN, F. STEPHEN, L, and ANN, L. (2008) The Media In Your Life: An Introduction To Mass
Communication. Fourth Edition. Pearson, New York.
JOSEPH R. DOMINICK. (2011) The Dynamics Of Mass Communication: Media In Transition.
Eleventh Edition. Mc Graw Hill, New York.
OLIVER, B. and TERHI, R. (1998) The Globalization Of News. Sage Publications, London.
JOHN VIVIAN. (2008) The Media of Mass Communication, Eighth Edition, Pearson Education,
New York.
Electronic References:
TONY ROGERS (n.d.) Are Newspapers Dying? Yes Or No? About.com Guide. Available from:
http://www.journalism.about.com/od/trends/a/papersdying.htm [Accessed 22/11/11]
TONY ROGERS (n.d.) Why Are Newspapers Dying? About.com Guide. Available from:
http://www.journalism.about.com/od/trends/a/dyingpapers.htm [Accessed 22/11/11]
PHIL BARBER (n.d.) A Brief History Of Newspapers Historic Pages. Available from:
http://www.historicpages.com/nprhist.htm [Accessed 19/11/11]
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*Marking Scheme:
1. Introduction 10 marks
2. Factors contributed to the acceptance, adoption, and
growth of the chosen medium
20 marks
3. Challenges 20 marks
4. Conclusion 5 marks
5. Citation & Reference 5 marks
Total 60 marks
Presentation
a) Content
b) Communication Skills
10 marks
10 marks
Total 20 marks