Trends in Journalism

Trends in Journalism

"From Peddlers to AI: The Evolution and Emerging Trends in Journalism"

First let delve? into the history of journalism. As per the open sources, the journalism was first making available the outside information primarily by word of mouth. The peddlers and the traveling players were the first disseminator of the information. The peddlers or the small time? traders would bring the wares? from outside and while disposing/selling them would be sharing the knowledgeable of the things available outside.? The traveling players were basically the actors in the troupes? which would periodically perform for entertainment at different places. They would share the information of outside sometimes in the forms of plays, stories and during general interaction with the audiences.

As the literacy spread, the people started writing on leaves and then papers to share the information amongst small groups. This was mainly concerning the business arena. The advent of Printing press in 1440 was a game changer because the information could get replicated very swiftly. Printing press was made mainly used for , spreading or sharing the political, military and economic news. The government first used this medium for sharing their policies and agenda in the form of gazette . The first newspaper weekly was started in 1605 in Germany and another 50 years more than 30 cities had active? publications in Europe, the present diamond trading place ie? Antwerp then became a hub for connecting and circulating news across the Europe. Before the introduction of next disruption technology i.e. radio in 1920s,? for more than 500 years there was a churning process. The newspaper was first used by political parties to spread their agenda at the local and national level.? By the end of 19 century advertising became a main source of revenue for these newspaper. So more circulation meant more money. This is where the entrepreneurs entered in this area. With the aim of maximizing the circulation they had to project themselves as partisan/neutral, this is where actually the newspapers being impartial settled down.

The starting of radio broadcasting and in another 20 years, the TV followed by the? internet in 2000s,? the journalism went through different cycles of un-settling and settling down. Post? 2000s personalization, globalization, localization and popularization are still being rather struggling among themselves for settling . It is hoped that this phase would also settle down in the near future with the Press becoming impartial for more circulation and the ‘underlining’ of more revenue generation.

There are very interesting emerging trends, which we futurists call the signals for the future.

?????????????? 1.?The local press like in Bedford was facing issues of circulation, and the unaffordable fixed cost of reporters or? journalists. To overcome this? “ new Bedford light” has been put into circulation, which instead of covering the already known areas available over the Internet and other medium , concentrates on a particular area and gives a detailed analysis of that sector like they covered the real estate market, which was coming up in this once very rich town.

?????????????? 2.?Some media houses have started making platforms for local news because coverage of international and national news is widely available. There is always a dearth of the local news or happenings so they are freely allowing the citizens or the residents of that area to report about the local happenings/events . This is cutting down on the cost of keeping journalists/reporters, and the citizens being known to each other have the pressure of not reporting anything wrong which may lead to loss of face amongst the peers.

?????????????? 3. Nonprofit journalism is also coming up, supported by various organization like the Institute for the nonprofit news.

?????????????? 4.?It is being assessed that by 2026 the content on the Internet would be totally synthetically generated by AI. We are likely to shift over to search generative content (SGE). Some Media houses are startling the training of the AI algorithms for? churning the inputs available universally ie the media outlets, websites, TV news, radio, and social media etc. They are of the view that in the future, there might not be any need of reporters because smart system backed with AI, would be analyzing all the data and giving the right output for the viewers. This is partly to ease out the cost of human factors, i.e. journalists and reporters in the long term.

?????????????? 5.?The barriers being created in the form of subscriptions and others is likely to? go away soon.

?????????????? 6.??The influencers are slowly and steadily becoming very important because the dissemination of news is very swift in those cases.

The entities in Journalism may want to take note of the above trends which have been seen in the open sources. There are many others which the professionals know the best. The people already working in specific area normally find it challenging to take out time to think, workout all the possibilities, build scenarios and take decisions which are needed says 10 years later.

The work of the futurists is to guide? in any field and help in shaping the desired future.