The future of the publishing industry in light of social media and unlimited exposure
By: Meera Gandhi in Voices
Today most of us get our information from social media in one form or another. The future of the publishing industry will be to disseminate information in shorter, more easily consumable byte size to adapt to the new super fast moving digital age on the planet currently!
The way information is consumed in today’s global world depends on the age of the consumer. Inspite of the different modes of delivery, digital vs print vs tv vs audio; information stills needs to be curated, published and disseminated. That will not change. The way information is disseminated is changing, the content is changing – it’s shorter, more sound byte driven for quick and broad distribution, the speed of information is faster and the reach is broader!
Today more people on the planet have access to information and news and research at their fingertips than ever before. This has given rise to the need for more content creation as information and knowledge is consumed so voraciously that there always seems to be a need for more information and news and innovative articles.
This means that the future of the publishing world is clearly here to stay but will morph into a more limber, light process where information,research, new developments and breaking events will have to be communicated in a much briefer format that works for digital print, audio, video and print communication. It’s definitely more challenging to be a 24 hour a day non-stop publishing machine, but that’s what we humans do, we adopt and we evolve!
Now let’s look at the various generations that co-exist in the world today.
The Pew Research Center explains that generations are defined by groups of people born within the same 15-20 year span. Generations are measured to observe change over time across people. “This provides a way to understand how different formative experiences interact with the life-cycle and aging process to shape people’s view of the world,” says Pew.
So, from baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964)to Gen X (1965 to 1980)to millennials or gen Y (1981 to 1986) to Gen Z (1997 to 2012) and the newly emerging Gen Alpha,(2012 to 2024), millions of people across the world today connect under the generational relation of being born within the same time period. They are pushing the publishing industry towards digital and social media style reporting and away from the lengthier article style reporting. Publications have to be 360 degrees in other words able to be communicated by audio, video, print and digital at the same time.
So how do baby boomers find their news and how does that affect the publishing industry?
According to Beresford Research, baby boomers are anyone born between 1946 and 1964. Baby boomers are the generation of people born after World War II and they still love to pick up a newspaper or Magazine and read the print. Many are savvy and use Google and the internet to shop and find information, but a majority still like to physically buy products and obtain information from printed sources like books, magazines, television and newspapers. This generation consumes publications in the classic established manner.
Next, “Generation X according to the Beresford Research is anyone born between the years 1965 and 1980. Gen X is the generation that follows the baby boomers. According to Britannica, Gen Xers are described as “resourceful, independent, and keen on maintaining work-life balance.”
This generation is using emails, the internet, some print, someTV, lots of Facebook and some instagram to receive their published information. They do still read books!
What about millennials?
Millennials, also known as Generation Y, were born between 1981 and 1996, according to Beresford Research. This generation is the rebel generation. They don’t want brands as such, curate a lot of their own information, consume mostly from the internet and digital mediums and largely use instagram, Facebook and Tick Tock for their news. Big on research, they are quick to adopt new trends!
The Average millennial owes 10% more on mortgage debt as home prices, interest rates spike, So they tend to be more careful spending on subscriptions and printed material! Furthermore they are very much at home using their computers to read articles or order online! Millenials are pushing publishing giants to hire the nimble stay at home or travel laptop journalists to curate their published material!
Members of Gen Z, according to Beresford Research, were born between 1997 and 2012. This hardworking, laptop trotting Gen Z expects to retire by 63 but “underestimates how much money it will need to live on “ according to Evan Hecht,USA today. Gen Z consumes information byte size and texting or Whatsapp is always the alternative to picking up their phone to answer a live call! I have a number of Gen Z-era people who work for me and I find this quite maddening and hilarious at the same time! They spend money on experiences in nature and tend to play more outdoor sports than any previous generation their age!
Gen Z is the snap chat, Tick Tock, some instagram, Whatsapp , Facebook, and semi-video games generation that uses hardly any print or tv news for its published information. It’s mostly all online! They are greatly reducing the profits of the printed publishing world!
Finally, What is the current generation and how do they affect the future of the publishing industry?
According to The Atlantic, the current generation of people being born is Generation Alpha.Generation Alpha is from 2012 to 2024. Evan Hecht writes “This is the Video game generation:How many Pokémon are there? We counted every generation of Pokémon, including Arceus would be their answer!”
This generation’s hand writing skills are very poor as there is practically no use for hand writing in their world, super savvy on social media they have no use for newspapers, magazines or television but are very well read and more educated in absolute numbers than ever before on the planet. They consume information byte size, but spend hours chatting on the phone! It’s a contradiction that is yet to be understood. They are the tick tock, instagram, Amazon and Snapchat generation. They think what app chains are a chore to read and the more apps on their phone the better!
The alpha generation does not relate to the publishing industry as it has stood for the past 400 years. They are pushing the publishing industry to create more real time content, disseminated digitally and globally across multi media. They have little use for printed paper and have replaced all libraries to work spaces where a laptop is all that is required to do research or learn.
In conclusion, the fact remains that even though published information like books, articles, stories, news, breaking events, soul searching and religious media are being consumed differently by different ages, the publishing world is more important now than ever, and is here to stay! Except the publishing industry will disseminate more and more through social media, digital and video channels. But the need to curate correct, reliable and worthy information will always be the prowess of the publishing industry!
Source: The Times of India