A number of projects will come to fruition this fall that our faculty have been working on over the past two years. We have seen a consumer shift from using mass media channels to using more interactive media or imedia channels. A study, funded in part by Nielsen and conducted by Ball State University, supports the notion that consumers are spending their day with a number of digital technologies. TV garners the most face time with all age groups in this study at nearly 6 hours daily. But, Web use and mobile are now part of the media mix for most age groups with an average of two hours-twenty three minutes and twenty minutes daily usage respectively. The trends also point to more consumers rejecting conventional advertising (TiVo) in favor of managing their own programming (content) at their convenience. This clearly puts consumers in charge. In the future, web-TV via the internet or through mobile devices will offer a range of content choices limited only by our time and interest. What do these changes mean for mass media, the advertisers and the ad agencies who create and place the advertising?
Bob Garfield sums things up nicely in his new book the Chaos Scenario. The bottom line is that the players in “old school” media and advertising are now forever transformed. Because of the huge expense and complexity of gathering and delivering news, it used to be a relatively scarce item and priced accordingly. Cheap technology and Web distribution have meant a proliferation of “news” content from major media players, non-government organizations, businesses and individuals. While Garfied notes that “Free is a tough price to compete with”, consumers will continue to “pay” by subscription or through their attention to premium content.
The challenge for all of our majors will be to produce professional digital content and understand how to position that content to be easily found by Google and other search engines. It is with this mission in mind that the faculty of the School of Journalism at WKU decided to launch a new certificate program called imedia. The imedia certificate was approved the WKU Board of Regents last spring and Kerry Northrup, one of the founders of Newsplex at the University of South Carolina, has agreed to manage and enhance the imedia program as part his Turner Chair position in Journalism.
We have had a great response to the certificate so far. If fact, our local newspaper did a terrific story about imedia on Thursday 8/20. You can also learn more here.
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