Internet vs. Print Media

In this new age in time where people are more visually inclined and the younger generation are more internet-driven, people feel that the print media is threatened by the existence of the internet. We are experiencing a ‘paradigm shift’ where in this new era, we are more exposed to multimodal texts; "texts that have more than one 'mode', so that meaning is communicated through a synchronisation of modes" (Walsh, 2006).

In the article entitled "Internet giving print media a run for its money", published in the Star Online on September 30, 2006, brings out the concern about the majority of the media's audience have turned to the internet rather than the conventional print media.

The World Wide Web, containing millions of sites ranging from serious matters like news, corporate sites and educational sites, down to sites on fashion, entertainment and blogs. Because it is time and cost effective, people turn to the internet as a source of information, entertainment and for personal use. This puts the print media in a tight spot. The existence of the internet has challenged the print media in many ways and sending books, magazines and newspapers into what may seem as prehistoric times.

The younger generation prefers to surf the web than read books. The web is more interactive in many ways and multimodal texts are more appealing. However, print media can never be 'extinct' because according to Penman (1998), a documen's functionality is dependent on its structure matching readers' habits, expectations and context of use. There are the traditional readers who still prefer to read print based text rather than the electronic based resources. For example, the newspapers are still printing as they cater to their ever loyal audience who are usually the older generation as they prefer to flip through the pages of a newspaper while having coffee in the morning. That is their daily routine and reading habit. This is why we have to identify the reading habits of the audience as it plays a vital role.

Print based documents and online documents are different as they serve different purposes and have different target audiences. The print media will exist as long as there is a demand for it and because the internet and print media serve different purposes, target audiences and their document design is different. People look for different things in both mediums. According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), there are certain possibilities and limitations of meaning derived from each medium. As said before, the text found online is usually shorter then print based text. They both serve different purposes and functionalities. Therefore, the print media can never be 'extinc'.


References:

“Internet giving print media a run for its money", The Star, viewed 16 October 2007,
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/11/30/asia/16177471&sec=asia

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading images: The grammar of visual design, 2nd edn, Routledge, London.

Penman, R 1998, Document structures and readers' habits, Communication news, vol.11, no. 2, pp. 10-11.

Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.