The liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, in a paper from Elaine Kamarck and Ashley Gabriele, offers insight into 7 trends in old and new media.
Their seven observations are solid, and broadly similar to the assessments of Clay Shirky, in Last call: the end of the printed newspaper.
Brookings summarizes their work:
The following are seven essential truths about the news today that Kamarck and Gabriele explore in detail:
- Print newspapers are dinosaurs
- Hard news is in danger
- Television is still important
- And so is radio
- News is now digital
- Social media allows news (and “news”) to go viral
- For the younger generation, news is delivered through comedy
It’s worth noting that print is failing both because it’s not interactive, and because it no longer has even the inquisitive sensibility toward the powerful of once-lauded, but still top-down, publications. (When online publications ape the incurious, fawning presentations of print publications, they consign themselves to the same fate as print.)
I’ve embedded the full white paper below –