Survival of the Fittest

by Chen Kaihe

A few years ago, I attended a symposium on media convergence in Taiwan. There, a senior Taiwanese journalist claimed, incredibly, "We are holding a memorial ceremony for the print media ahead of time." Many participants refuted his argument, and finally he had to withdraw his claim.

In the more than two years since that conference, the global economic crisis has accelerated the decline of the print media industry in many Western countries, making the claim that "print media is doomed" more attractive.

"The demise of print media" argument came about primarily because of the rise of online media. Indeed, the Internet's rapid growth is unprecedented. In China, during a short span of over 10 years, the number of netizens has exceeded 400 million, of which 310 million people read news online, and around 240 million have their own blogs. This, inevitably, has brought significant impact on the print media industry in China.

Over the past few years, the growth rate of China's print media industry has declined in terms of circulation and advertising revenue. In 2008, the total number of domestic newspapers printed, for the first time, experienced negative growth.

However, in concluding that print media is doomed we overestimate the impact of online media. In the foreseeable future, China's print media industry will witness new changes, but the demise of the whole print media industry is impossible.

At present, online information in China is basically free of charge. However, abundant free information is a double-edged sword, which brings netizens convenience, yet poses challenges to their judgment and patience. Beneath the information glut, reliable information is badly needed. People are now accustomed to a fast-paced life, and they get tired of spending time distinguishing and filtering out a huge amount of unreliable or irrelevant content just to find trustworthy and useful information.

When major events occur, people want to read reliable news as well as in-depth analysis and comments, which are the strengths of traditional print media. It's true that online media can provide 24-hour news non-stop, which, indeed, cannot be done by print media. But how many people really need to read all kinds of news for 24 hours? Media audiences, including netizens, have limited time and energy. Spending too much time reading on the computer screen is not only a huge time-waster, but also may worsen eyesight. My colleague once joked that online media has been a boon to China's health care sector.

I don't mean that China's print media should not take the impact of online media seriously. On the contrary, in the new media environment, the print media can survive only if it enhances its competitiveness in content, finding the right target audience and using new information technologies.

Personally, I visit some online news sites, yet still read one or two newspapers almost every day. The two ways offer me different reading experiences.

Moreover, unlike Western countries, China's media market is still developing, and the government has been making efforts to form a unified national media market. As the market develops and expands, the print media will be able to better consolidate its advantageous position competitively, while the traditionally disadvantaged local media will secure its position in the local market.

Compared with Western countries, Chinese media industry has its own characteristics in terms of its operation system, which is also the reason why the Western media crisis did not happen in China. However, the strengthening of market trends and the impact of online media will inevitably change the internal structure of the print media. But in this process, well-developed print media will survive regardless.