Page 137 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

116 Critical investigations in political economy

twentieth century forms of media power. To avoid merely reproducing an
oscillation between techno-optimism versus pessimism we need to situate analysis
and distinguish processes carefully including three key aspects:

1 Institutional change and adaption
How have old ‘legacy’ media companies expanded into online media?
How have institutions adapted or failed to adapt to new conditions?
2 Market conditions
How do the technical, operational and business models facilitated by the
Internet affect media content industries?
3 Emergent market and non-market actors
How does the way the net has developed influence the space and
opportunities for new media content services – including alternative media?

While businesses have reorganised in the face of real and predicted changes in
consumers’ use of digital media, consumption of traditional media has proved
far more buoyant than many 1990s accounts predicted. For instance, while a
majority of UK homes are now connected to the Internet (increasing from
25 per cent in 2000 to 76 per cent in 2011) and the use of smartphones and
mobile devices has increased rapidly, broadcast TV remains the most popular
medium, with viewing increasing by around eighteen minutes over the last
decade to just over four hours a day (Ofcom 2011). A study of news consumption
amongst the UK adult population found the main source for news to be Internet
6 per cent, TV 65 per cent and newspapers 15 per cent (Ofcom 2007). The
Internet is becoming the main source of news for the young, but television
remains the most used source (78 per cent of adults), with most news consumers
accessing only three providers (78 per cent) (Ofcom 2013). By the end of 2006
three out of four US respondents listed television as the main source of news – a
rate basically unchanged from 1991 levels. Digital media continued to see the
greatest audience growth, with other platforms falling, yet television remains the
main news source for most Americans (Pew Research Centre 2012, 2013).
Old media took to the web. In 1993 only 20 newspapers had electronic versions
but by 1995 there were 496 newspapers online worldwide. By 1998, more than
2,700 newspapers internationally had online businesses, of which 60 per cent
were US based. Today, almost all commercial newspapers have a web presence.
Online audiences for national newspapers are generally considerably larger than
offline. In the UK the Guardian newspaper is the most read news site with
11.3 million, followed by the MailOnline with 10.6 million (Guardian 2013).
Küng et al. (2008: 126) identify a first phase of media business development
from the mid 1990s to 2001 and a second phase following the dotcom crash of
2000–2001; the first phase was characterised by ‘breathless enthusiasm and
predictions of profound transformation’, with the second ‘quietly bringing the
extreme changes promised by the first’. In phase one there were some spectacular
failures for old media ventures online. New Century Network, a US-based