Massive Alterations in Production & Consumption of Journalism:Analyse the Impact of Mobile Phones on the News Industry

With the popularity of mobile phones and greatly improved network speeds, large numbers of various information are transmitted through social media on mobile phones. People can no longer live without mobile phones.  In this case, it is important to understand the influence of mobile phones. Despite that the data of the Office of Communications (OFcom) (2017 & 2018) showed that the traditional media, TV still holds the domination position (79%) in the journalism market in the UK, the internet increased dramatically from 32% (2013) to 64% (2018). Mobile phones have provided multiple social media platforms which broadens the media market. Journalists need to master new skills for adapting alterations, such as using mobile devices to collect news materials (Bui & Moran, 2019). The way of news is produced and consumed have transferred to online platforms significantly due to the advances in mobile phone technologies. This essay will analyse changes in news production from traditional media and emerging media respects and alterations in news consumption from consumer's passive and active aspects, then, discuss the issues caused by these transmutations.

Traditional media has been impacted by the mobile phone industry; news production has undergone tremendous changes. Westlund (2013) claims that getting news on mobile phones has become increasingly important for citizens in the daily life, traditional news media companies explored that repurposing or customising news information for mobile devices as new methods to provide news. Westlund & Färdigh (2015) also report that mobile devices have become increasingly important, in order to adapt this situation, media companies have started turning their expansion direction to new techniques such as developing digital and mobile news provision. This evidence shows that media companies find various opportunities and challenges in mobile phones and in order to be more profitable, they have to develop new technologies to adapt to new market conditions, despite the fact that some evidence showed the opposite conditions a few years ago. Westlund (2007, cited in Westlund, 2013) earlier researches indicate that apparently, people are unwilling to obtain news from mobile devices, only 15% people read news on mobile phones in Sweden in 2011 (Westlund, 2012 cited in Westlund, 2013), mobile phones are just supplements, when other media are not available, such as the commute time. Additionally, Dimmick, Feaster and Hoplamazian (2011) also concluded that the media market is dominated by traditional media and there is almost no sign of loss. Yet the popularity of the internet has outpaced the news with the development of application systems on mobile devices (Westlund, 2013). The fact is that mobility has become increasingly critical for news access and these changes have made the feature of news industry unpredictable. Traditional media business patterns, such as newspapers, revenue have gradually reduced, especially through advertising, global news media companies try to make up for the loss of their users on traditional platforms, by turning to provide news to mobile devices (Nel & Westlund, 2012; Westlund, 2011 cited in Westlund & Färdigh, 2015). The powers of mobile devices should be taken seriously.

According to Westlund (2013), nowadays, there are more than 6 billion people all around the world could access the internet through mobile devices, which is far more than all other media and even power systems. Considering such a significant number of user base, there is no other issue that can connect such a large number of people, so it could be argued that mobile phones are the future of many industries, especially the journalism which is built on the dissemination and diffusion of information.  Moreover, research about journalism education pointed out that mobile technique increasingly has become a concentration in the press, journalists need to master new abilities to help them become more competitive, such as using mobile devices to collect news materials, mobile editing techniques and coding skills (Bui & Moran, 2019). Therefore, the new competitor emerging in the current technological explosion —— independent media must be discussed.

Due to the emergence of independent media, the necessity of the professional qualification of a journalist has changed. Jurrat (2011) point out that individual journalists have routinely participated in news dissemination, by providing important content such as news information and a large number of particular important picture materials, especially in areas where professional journalists are restricted. The definition of the ‘journalist’ has been completely changed and every individual can become a news producer and communicator. According to Mythen (2010), more and more public scenes and citizens’ descriptions of emergencies are used by the media, meanwhile, citizens could create and disseminate media works independently due to the progress of technologies. In addition, Mythen (2010) also concluded that the ‘citizen journalism’ was promoted by the advances of the interactive media and the convergence of technologies, in this environment, audiences are not only audiences; communicators are not only communicators but also the ones who create and record the news. From existing evidence, it is undoubtedly that the independent media has a strong connection with mobile interactive techniques.

On the other hand, the most significant change in journalism industry is the impact of emerging media on traditional media. Kulick (2014) claims that these independent media outlets are non-commercial spaces where young individuals working together to challenge the rule made by traditional mainstream media. Which seems like provided a conjecture about the incompatible relationship between emerging media and traditional media. Although the previously mentioned d of Jurrat (2011) describes the help of independent media to traditional media, in fact, it is also a kind of occupy of emerging media to the traditional media market. In addition, Katz (2011) states that as a result of technological changes, the service capabilities of newspapers have been damaged and the public’s reading habits have been transferred from the actually delivered newspapers; the costs of editing, producing and publishing of traditional newspaper were soared, thus the social media as the emerging sources of news become increasingly popular. Furthermore, advertising investment has become absent from the printed media to online stores, especially the targeted advertising on the internet seized the newspapers’ income which has been used to financially help to report companies (Katz, 2011). There is a definite possibility that the emerging of social media seriously threatens the social status and economic viability of traditional media, adapting to the changes brought by mobile phones is the only option. Katz (2011) concluded that Traditional media must transform and join social media to survive. Additionally, Westlund & Färdigh (2015) also speculate that the future of journalism relies on how traditional news media and emergent participants approach and manage the production and distribution of news in an age increasingly marked by digital and mobile media. Therefore, the consumption of news also was altered significantly.

Cyberspace and social media platforms of the public are largely encroached by these news contents. “They don’t need to seek it out, news comes to them (Galan et. al., 2020)”. According to Westlund (2013), the conventional news media base on the advertisement and the charge from the news contents and they have constructed strategies which are omnipresence. Additionally, the more important thing is that the model of production and consumption of news on mobile devices has dominated the market already undergone the progress of many years (Westlund, 2013). Which shows clearly of the influences of the production on consumption in the journalism industry and the significance of mobile phones. Furthermore, research of Curry, Peacock & Stroud (2020) suggest that a substantial number of news applications on mobile phones would arrange notifications which are displayed on the lock screens of users and send people breaking news. The problem is that many times users may not want to read the news but passively carried out this part of news consumption. Abeele et. al. (2020) state that happening to see the news can be seen as an encounter with unexpected news, those “news messages that are coming to you and you had no idea you would find them (Lana, quoted in Abeele et.al., 2020)”. Which is the support of the fact that mobile phone holders are not always want to see those news contents, but the news message was shown to them.

These accidental news contents completed its mission to inform the public and can help publishers attract consumers (Curry et al., 2020). Which is a reminder of that the operation of the news industry is essentially the operation of capital, and it could be argued that most of the movements of the media companies are for seeking more profits. Regarding this, Nelson (2019) point out that even the consume platforms are changed, the most of contents consumer saw still remains to those fashionable and famous brands, they consume on digital media are not actually democratic. From which it might be seen how entrenched the traditional media has been in the market after years of capital accumulation. Moreover, in order to achieve omnipresent, a large amount of journalism media have conducted cross-media journalism projects, from the later 1990s, some traditional media companies have tried publishing news on pagers (Cawley, 2008; Goggin, 2010 & Westlund, 2011 cited in Westlund, 2013). After nearly three decades of development, publishing news on mobile devices has finally formed a scale of prosperity. However, it cannot be concluded that all of the consuming of news on mobile phones is passive and accidental, comparing to traditional media, mobile news has more advantages and users' own willing to consume mobile news are also part of the reason.

According to Galan et. al., youths still need and want to have a connection with the world through news to satisfy different social and person needs but not necessarily form traditional media platform (2020). Undoubtedly, the more convenient and higher quality product would always be chosen by customer. In contrast to traditional media such as newspaper, mobile news constantly has a higher currency and more immersive experience. Due to these improvements, the ways of people access the news in daily life was shifted to mobile phones significantly (Färdigh & Westlund, 2015). The fact is that numbers of the mobile news feeds are designed to make it easier for users to use and read to attract more users, and the mobile platform is more flexible than traditional media. According to Westlund (2013), before 2006 (3G networks are not yet popular), the mobile sites were designed for the internet browsers on mobile phones which normally included text for the most part, reducing the images, audio and video in order to help users saving their cost for internet which is a normally experiment that aiming to obtain more exposure and be more friendly to users and many news publishers used to spend uncountable amount of energy to do this. However, despite that in the late of 2007, due to the emerging of new mobile ecosystem, the release of the news once again saw major changes, traditional media companies still maintain explore ways to make news feeds more user-friendly to users (Westlund, 2013). So, the advantages of mobile news cannot be denied. From the other aspect, hardly any traditional media is subjective, unbiased and non-political, which is also a reason of the appearance of independent media. Kulick (2014) suggests that young people could rush into media companies or communication management department to require a media system with more just and more accurately represented on mainstream media, or they could also build their own media based on their own wishes and ideas. In where they try to replace the old media system with a communication model that looks more democratic, which not only sends media messages to young people, tries to change their media habits, but also provides them with resources and training to try to get more new people to join them (Kulick, 2014). Therefore, some problems caused by these huge changes must be taken seriously.

Under the prosperity of mobile news, some serious problems have gradually emerged and become more and more obvious such as fake news. Due to the fact that everyone could become an individual journalist and publish news messages on social media, the authenticity of these messages often needs to be investigated. According to OFcom (2018), despite that many people using social media to get news, meanwhile, they may try to find original source of the news story (2018). Which is a good respect because it shows that people do not completely believe in social media, but one issue must be considered: How many people really would investigate the truth? Because it’s much easier to believe than to seek truth. Mythen (Eldridge 1999; Hansen 2000; Reilly 1999; Wales & Mythen 2002 cited in 2010) claims that for a long time, many pieces of research have shown that the media impact the attitudes of public and it is critical for forming people’s understanding and the reaction of risks. Hence, irresponsible media could cause serious social issues by using inappropriate or inflammatory speech. In the research of Boczkowski & Wagner (2019), an interviewee said that she is afraid of the situation of the journalism environment and she started focusing on the sources of that news because there is so many fake news, and another interviewee said the best way to break fake news is to find a reliable source, but nowadays, is really hard to tell what is reliable. Besides, Boczkowski & Wagner (2019) concluded that generally, public agree with that the reliability of news on social media platforms is low quality, they become increasingly doubtful with news in that environment and they have spent more attention to other news consumers’ speeches and reactions. Additionally, Kulick (2014) also concluded that there are still a significant number of problems in the independent media and the quality one of the most substantial problems. Due to the shortage of lack professional education, massive issues would be found in their products, such as picture jitter and noise, the inclusiveness, avant-garde and authenticity of their contents also need to be verified (Kulick, 2014). Based on these facts, there appeared some arguments that people should return to mainstream media (Boczkowski & Wagner, 2019). These are extremely complicated questions, and no answer can be given here, but these complicated questions prove one point: mobile phone technology and its products have a huge impact on the journalism industry.

In conclusion, the production and consumption of news are shifted significantly by the progress of the mobile phone industry and its results such as social media platforms and mobile techniques and with multipole reasons. Abeele et al. (2020) state that mobile techniques coincidentally promote journalism consumption. In addition, News production and consumption have the characteristics of complexity and complementarity (Yuan, 2011 cited in Westlund, 2015). In other words, the relationship between production and consumption patterns are extremely complex and affect each other. The production affects people's consumption to some extent, and when a certain kind of production obtained the favour of consumers, other producers will naturally imitate in order to seek more profits. The fact must be pointed out that the influence of mobile phones is a complex issue, only several aspects have been discussed in this article which are more obvious, significant and representative, there could be knowledge gaps. But the fact is that it is impossible to require everyone to be completely objective and unbiased, even for professional journalists, not to mention individual journalists, as news consumers, among messy information, independent thinking and discernment are vital.

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