The Impact of Changes in Journalism Technology Platforms on the Development of Journalism

Abstract

In the first ten years of the 21st century, technological innovation brought tremendous changes to the media landscape. The arrival of the information age has brought benefits and development space to many industries, but it gives traditional journalism more challenges and impacts. Whether the journalism will continue to decline under this kind of impact is a topic discussed by many scholars. Some people think that the direct news provided by the Internet will end critical journalism (Bardoel 1996), and others think that news will improve itself and better adapt to the times. Traditional journalism has always held absolute rule over the sovereignty of the media industry. It is good at isolating itself from social discussions in other cultures and regards itself as the centre (Conboy 2009). However, the Internet and satellite TV have broken this situation, delivering timely, efficient, and huge amounts of news to viewers through technology platforms. Such technological changes have brought disaster to the journalism industry, but they may not completely destroy the journalism industry. Because such a challenge is also an opportunity, it may be able to help the transformation of journalism to adapt to the contemporary social environment. For example, the press can transfer from the previous commercialization to audience dominance, as a mass media survival. Contemporary journalism should consider how to better cater to the current environment. Under the impact of technology platforms, it first bases its heels, and then attempts to use these technologies to better create and spread news. For example, many elite newspapers (The Guardian, The Independent) and tabloids (The Sun) have opened User-generated content (UGC) to online newspaper platforms, trying to make changes and progress.