Newspapers are Dying

Hello, hope you are doing well and are having a good day. 

For my first post I wanted to talk about something which I am very interested in. That is the decline of newspapers. 

I'm pretty sure that most people take in some kind of news. Whether that be from the Sunday newspaper or from the BBC app or even from social media sites such as Twitter or Instagram. However, today I wanted to talk about the physical newspapers and how their relationship has changed within society. 

Newspapers have been the main source of information for centuries now, with the first newspaper recorded being a German newspaper 'Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien', which was printed from 1605 onwards by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg. However, forms of newspapers have existed since Ancient Rome. "They were issued on single sheets, folded to form four pages, and issued on a weekly schedule." This format has influenced all newspapers over the world as we know them. There was also a form of news bulletin in China, which began in (estimated) 713 AD. It would contain government news and was handwritten in silk. Not much different from now then, hah. 

British newspapers began appearing widely in society around the 1600s when the government started to alleviate the laws on censorship. They became increasingly in demand as people became interested in finding out the local news and current affairs in the country. Moving into the 18th century, the government became wary of the citizens in the country knowing about political cirmcumstances so they brought in a tax for newspapers. It became harder to print and publish as the tax increased the price of the newspapers which left the companies worried about the future of news. Luckily, they managed to survive through the tax increase and numbers increased through the readers. Newspapers also became more biased and invovled in politics, this is when they started to align themselves along the political spectrum. People could now pick up a newspaper that would align with their own political beliefs and get a biased filter of the current news. I believe that this is an incredibly important moment in the history of news and journalism. They now had their own angle and an influence over their readers. 

Whizzing into the 21st century, we can see this influence prevalant in our society. The difference in the way the Guardian and the Daily Mail words headlines and writes about the same story is huge. The left-leaning Guardian reports in favour of democratic and socialist ideals, with huge focus on climate change and British politics. The Daily Mail tends to be right-leaning and focuses on pop culture and seems to focus on tabloid news now, reporting about models and celebrities. This helps bring in a younger audience than the Guardian who can be polarizing to people not so interested in current affairs.

This polarization is what I believe has led to the decline in sales of physical newspapers. Newspapers are now focused on how to get the first grabs on information. They have digs at political figures or shame women for their normal bodies rather than creating good content to get the younger generations involved. Personally, I don't want to go to the shop and buy a dirty piece of paper just to read angry white men raging about a women putting on a pound. I want engaging, reliable content which can be accessed through a phone. I want quick news, but detailed posts which are impartial and engaging. 

Some newspapers are making good moves into engaging with a younger audience, by creating Instagram accounts and Twitter pages and really making sure they are getting this message across. But it's a shame to see that more technical and political papers not getting involved with these new marketing moves. Why are teenagers (which are the largest demographic who use social media) not be able to access this engaging content? 

We should be trying with all our might to be getting younger people involved in politics and current affairs because we are the future. We are the people who are going to be running the country. We are going to parent the next generation and how can we do that when we may not be involved in what is actually going on in the world? 

I also believe the language used in popular newspapers can be quite isolating to readers. More complex language can be incredibly hard to understand for some people. By using this elaborate language, you are often creating a divide between people. Some readers may not want to continue engaging with this content if it is challenging to read and understand. This is incredibly dangerous. This is why people turning to unreliable yet often easier to understand sources which spreads more incorrect information. People want to be able to engage with news but don't want to get a migraine from trying to read it. Written news should be concise and somewhat simple. 

This is the reason that news has changed forms. It is more popular to get your news from Twitter, where you can see what other people are saying about it, or Instagram, where you can see it displayed in infographics (visual representation of data). People are interested in what others are thinking and their opinions on these matters, and you just can't get that from a physical copy of a newspaper. Social media circulates quickly and produces short headlines, which you can engage with immediately. The short titles and quick summaries these platforms offer are responsible for the influx of people accessing them. It is simple and easy to engage with and takes you less than 5 minutes to get your daily news intake.

In summary, I believe that physical newspapers are dying because new platforms like social media are taking this position. They are isolating because of the language and bias they hold and this in turn distances the reader. To change this, they should become more engaged with social media and become more impartial so people of all beliefs can be involved and cared for.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this topic as I think is quite interesting and I have barely scraped the surface of my thoughts on it.

Please shoot me a DM on Insta and talk about what you think as well.

Anyway I apologise for a longer one today, it took me a while to compile the thoughts, lol. Hope you are doing well and thank you very much for your support already, it means the world.

Lots of love, 

Leah xxx

p.s please send feedback and advice to my instagram @leah_nott!