| A very graphic end for print media. illustration by Lewis Chang |
Fahrenheit 1337
Don't let print media die!
The troubles plaguing the print-media industry are of great concern to me and should be so for everyone else. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are suffering, and people are using others means, especially the Internet, to get the information they need.
But print media still has its place as a historically significant way to transmit information from one source to another, even though electronic sources are carving out their place in history as well. The death of print media has also been linked with totalitarianism in the sense that killing off books and other related media increases the control a regime would have over the thought and the creativity of a society.
Some personal background is necessary to understand my perspective. As a child, my parents always encouraged me to read. They created an environment in which reading was necessary to survive because it was the gateway to knowledge of the world and how it works.
For this reason, reading the newspaper as often as possible became somewhat of a family pastime. I can still remember sitting down at the table on weekend mornings to eat my chocolate-chip waffles and dive into the thin, text-covered pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune, devouring both my breakfast and the valuable information those pages contained.
The sad news is that the availability and ease of accessing information in different ways, whether through the internet, TV, or other sources, is eclipsing the need for books and newspapers. Are these media suffering because people simply aren’t reading anymore? Unlikely. The popularity of new devices such as Amazon.com’s Kindle, a handheld device that allows wireless access to digital forms of books, newspapers, and other reading materials, suggests otherwise.
The true reasons for the industry’s problems are primarily economic in nature. With the internet age has come the capability to spread information quickly, efficiently, and in different forms over long distances, often for free or for minimal cost compared to traditional print forms. Any regular Joe can open up his own blog and report events as they happen for interested readers at no cost to the reader. As a result, people are increasingly turning to the internet as their primary source of news and information.
Companies that have traditionally invested in print advertising in newspapers and magazines know what these technological advancements and consumer trends mean for their bottom lines. Fewer people reading the morning paper translates into fewer consumers seeing their advertising in that paper. Companies are relying less on print advertising and more on advertising through the internet and other digital means, which significantly hurts the print media industry.
Even in the cases where print media is not suffering, publications are appealing to a shrinking percentage of the population, while the audience of internet media continues to grow as technology advances. This cycle has created an environment in which the future of print media is uncertain, and the emergence of the internet as the victor in the race to provide information seems inescapable.
Don’t get me wrong. I am all for the spread of information over the internet. It would be silly to suggest that the information capabilities of the internet are a step backwards rather than forward, and I would have to be a fool to argue that being able to open up an internet browser and find out what is going on right now on the other side of the planet isn’t amazing and useful. But, there is something to be said for reading a story to a child from an actual book or catching up on the local basketball team’s statistics by flipping open the sports section in the morning paper. The tangibility of print media simply cannot be replaced by digital means.
I have no idea how to save print media from a slow, painful, and expensive death, and I won’t pretend I do. But I just cannot imagine a world without books and magazines and newspapers to entertain and inform the masses. History has been shaped by the print industry, and decades upon decades of people have been heavily influenced by either possessing or not possessing information that could be found in print sources.
To see the traditional library die would also be tragic; there is a sense of awe that comes with walking amongst thousands of pages of amassed knowledge. Moreover, I cannot help but cringe at the terrible association between the death of books and the rise of a controlled dystopian society like the one detailed in the famous novel Fahrenheit 451, despite knowing that the uncontrollable nature of the internet all but guarantees that independent thought will continue to live on even if the print media industry crumbles.
All I can do for now is support newspapers and books financially by purchasing them and encouraging others to do the same. And, futile though it may be, I can still hope that one day I will be able to sit around the table with my own family and laugh at the comics in the Sunday morning paper. 
Add a comment!