Comparison of Articles Relating to Newspaper Industry

Introduction

With the digitalization of news, the newspaper industry is facing structural change. The significant decline in readership and revenue generated from newspaper advertisement is bringing much pessimism towards the industry. Some companies did not manage to survive the drastic change in the business climate. Thus this structural change is seen as a crisis threatening the existence of newspaper by some researchers. The three articles below looked into the same issue; newspaper crisis.

Siles and Boczkowski (2012) critically analyzed the source, manifestations and implications of the newspaper crisis and provided ways to overcome the challenges. Schlesinger and Doyle (2014) specifically discussed how the newspapers business has been reshaped under the effect of the Internet, management’s attitude and reaction to the crisis of two specific news organizations. In the article written by Carson (2012), she confirms the decline of the circulation of newspapers by providing evidence and raised her concern about the possible decreased quality of journalism brought by the structural change in the industry.

Though the the same issue, they discussed it from 3 different perspectives; Siles and Boczkowki (2012) talks about it in the light of the whole industry, Doyle and Schlesinger’s paper (2014) focused on newspaper business strategy, Carson (2012) is concerned about newspaper itself. Together, they constructed an all-rounded picture of the reshape that this industry is undergoing.

Discussion

Differences in approaches

By analyzing the crisis with a whole-industry perspective. Siles and Boczkowki (2012) dissect the nature of the crisis thoroughly by looking into the source, manifestations and implications of it. This approach makes sense because by looking at how the newspaper industry has landed in its situation then can appropriate solutions be formed to tackle the nub. This approach draws a broad picture of what the whole industry has done, what it is facing and the degree of severity.

On the other hand, Schlesinger and Doyle (2012) analyzes the crisis in a business perspective. They used case studies to reflect the direct impact that the Internet has brought to their business strategies. Now we know what exactly have the companies done to face this challenge and their future plan. By communicating with the decision-makers of the companies directly, we could understand the real concerns of different companies, their understanding of the situation, expectations and aims. Analyzing the problem using real life cases makes it easier to understand.

The approach by Siles and Boczkowki (2012) paints a larger and general picture and allows us to understand that the crisis is a result of complex interactions among different factors; whereas Doyle and Schlesinger zoomed into one of the causes; digitalization. By providing real examples, they make the crisis analysis more tangible and detailed.

The differences in approaches made two articles’ focuses complement each other; one shows process of how the crisis was formed, the other shows results; how the firms are dealing with it. More importantly, by putting these articles side by side, I could see whether the firms’ actions discussed by Schlesinger and Doyle (2014) are justified by the root causes and significance of the crisis discussed by Siles and Boczkowki (2012).