Happy hour for news media is over?

Theoretical perspectives on the impact of the internet on the mass media industries

Any organization, including media, has its own ecological cycle for an entire life upon the capability of adaptation into environmental change, which is mainly contributed from technological development. In consideration of the fact that few companies have been still up-listed on Dow Jones Industrial Average, major newspapers, however, had been in’ happy hours’ by keeping their influence still powerful for a long time. While they have survived for a long time, their dominant status as an opinion leader has dimed and financial status has been worse over time in emergence of the internet. Those aspects question their capability of adaptation to new technology.

From the perspective of environmental change, this article concisely touches every corner of media management/economics. However, this has a limitation to characterize the nature of media by broadly telling that media industry, especially news media, is a labor intensive industry. On the other hands, the media is called an industry which emphasizes human capital. However, can we replace the human capital emphasized industry with knowledge based industry? If so, what is innovation as a consequence of knowledge works in the news media? If innovation is embedded in the news organization, why media workers are paid less? Answers to those questions will be a starting point to determine the characteristics of media industry and to further investigate other related subjects.