Executive Summary: Journalism’s New and Emerging Realities

Posted Oct 21, 2009 @ 4:56 pm by AlisonHamm

Filed under: The Big Thaw    

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Four strategic questions frame the new challenges and opportunities for media organizations (outlined in the diagram below).

• New Sources of Value will create new Business Models. Traditional business  models, based on the value created between publishers and readers, have declined for a decade. The world economic crisis accelerated this meltdown, and organizations have redoubled efforts to find new sources of value and cut costs.

• Organizations’ Distinctive Competencies must match media’s new Competitive Landscape. In the new environment, collective action by a consortium of organizations has great potential to increase the power of independent media. However, bold collective steps will require a shared  perspective about media’s new realities and their implications.

The Future?

Many uncertainties and possible game changers remain on the horizon.

• Industry leaders are unsure how consumers will act, which trends will last, whether online media is helping or hurting our democracy and how the biggest players will affect the game.The rule of thumb is to expect the unexpected. Radical changes in technology will continue to affect the competitive landscape and the new competencies outlined in Vol. 2 will become even more important.

• Independent media-makers must keep their eye on game changers to come (diagram below). Most of these trends are in their early stages. While they have yet to reach game-changing scale, many of them will.

This blog is an excerpt from The Big Thaw, a guide to the evolution of independent media, written by Tony Deifell of Q Media Labs and produced by The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. Learn how your organization can use this report. For more information and recommendations from the study, click here.