Bingqing Mao

News Media’s Future in China

credit by: Aodian

The Vice President of Tencent Juhong Chen said in The Future of Chinese Internet media, a report published by the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication New Media Research Center and Tencent that the news organizations have crashed, the platform has been rebuilt. A brand new ‘Mass media era’ has already come. Facing up to a new round of media change, we are worrying while also find there are lots of opportunities. Media and media veterans must and have to confront it.”

The audiences’ needs become more diverse, which splits up new media into various forms in China, and the barrier to enter the media market also gets lower, news organizations are not the only information sources and many other industries has entered and built up their own ‘media’. The social media become the main platforms where audiences reach their information. In addition to the smartphone, other new technologies also threaten the exclusive position of traditional news media.

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The opinion from different generations towards new media also changes. The generation X still pay attention to the traditional media, however, they adapt to the news media form at the same time; the generation Y are following the steps of media change, feeling cautious about it; as far as generation Z, they are the people who lead to this change and we could find the future from their reading behaviors and preferences.

Young people prefer short, entertainment news, and more likely to watch videos and photo slides. They also want to customize their media subtribes, only looking for the information they ‘support to’ know to show their characteristic and individualism. But they don’t have solid interests all the time, it depends on various situations, such as large event, news movies or making new friends.

Furthermore, their reading behaviors are not isolated anymore. Influenced by social media, after they finished reading one article or video, they tend to repost it with their opinions and engaged in the discussion in this topic. Within certain discussions, they also perform their social activity. If the topic is related to the everyday life, it even will affect their purchase.

In 2012, the KFC was reported that they using fast growing chicken to service customers and this news reposted on social media rapidly, then people resisted KFC for a long time. Even now, many young people refuse to eat KFC (KFC is targeting young people in China), worrying food safety problems.

Another thing is that the youth have higher tolerance on advertising, once the advertising is their type. So we could find that now the advertising becomes more and more creative, some advertising even has strong plot.

However, young people have higher loyalty to the news media. Most of them only have one or two news Apps in their smartphone, or just follow one news media on their social media, because they are not really so interests in the everyday news. Nonetheless, if the news media could save these audiences, they will have a positive data of their page views and also advertising revenues.


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