Paper on The Evolution of Journalism in the 20th Century: From Mass Market to Niche Journalism

The 20th century is marked as a period of drastic change in the journalism industry due to the development of new mediums where each new medium was built on the old one and the growing sense of professionalism. News broadcasting went from being an afterthought to sustaining media outlets that operated 24 hours. Television replaced the newspaper as the commonly used source of information and displaced the radio's role as the go-to mass medium choice. Satellite use came into play, making international news possible, which took news content to a whole new level by developing global media. The media, especially in countries where it was set up as a public service rather than a commercial system, was directly or indirectly operated by the government. Here the news mainly focused on politics and governments and thus had fewer public affairs coverage, lifestyle, and entertainment news. As technology changed, broadcasting developments also changed and broke through state and national borders, and with satellite technology, organizations were formed to help coordinate everything. By the end of the 20th century, the news was delivered through all media platforms, radio, television, satellite, and cable.

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The growing sense of professionalism was attributed to the specialized education for journalism, the increasing numbers of working journalists, and the ever-increasing information on the problems, techniques of mass communication, and the history of journalism. Therefore, the resulting journalists had a better sense of social responsibility to the public (Hess et al. 7). This led to the global shift of the media industry from government-operated to commercialization in the latter half of the 20th century. Many radio and television stations were launched as a result. The mass market supported this type of system even after its shift and, even to some extent, showed rigidity to the change as they were used to broadcasting as political with propaganda involved. To set up a public service that was legitimate in the eyes of the consumers, most commercial enterprises opted to hire young inexperienced reporters and staff members who had not trained under the previous communist regimes.

A mass market is a type of marketing strategy where a product or service is promoted with the intention of selling it to as many people as possible by the use of mass media. In contrast, a niche market is highly specialized focuses on one specific product, and aims at satisfying specific market needs. The above two types of marketing strategies can also be incorporated into journalism,, mass-market journalism is considered inefficient as not everyone who sees the advertisement is interested and may lead to biased media with the aim of greater efficiency through target advertising (Serazio, 2). On the other hand, niche journalism is aimed at preventing burdening the audience with information they find unnecessary; thus, journalists can develop loyal readers who are interested in a specific niche. Niche journalism is achieved through article directories, podcasts, blogs, and other website-based media. It is ideal for either a company practicing niche marketing or even a freelance journalist to avoid pointless efforts to lure viewers and readers and unnecessary investment. As a result, time and money are saved, and the consumer gets better quality content.

For niche journalism to work, the company or journalist has to strive for quality and creativity; they should dig deeper into their content to attract and retain consumers on their websites, or else the audience will end up losing interest in the content (Smith,pg4). The design and layout of any publication need to surprise the consumers to increase reader participation constantly. The tone of the content matters a lot as the audience tends to be narrow yet deep and tends to be knowledgeable on the subject of interest; therefore, a journalist should keep this in mind when addressing this particular audience.

An article by Rob Haskell published in Vogue Magazine, "The Rules of Attraction" involved an interview where a music artist, Justin Bieber, and his wife Hailey Bieber, open up about how they fell in love, got married, the troubles they have had as a couple, and about couple's therapy. The Biebers acknowledged that marriage had not been easy, but they still hung in there because of the love they shared and that it was all in the romance. Justin explained in this interview that he felt as if he was not ready as he was only 25 at the time. Vogue goes a step further to add a picture of Justin and Hailey not only on the page of the interview but also on the cover page. This article is a perfect example of niche marketing because the news organization in question targets successful young women between the ages of 20 to 40 years who want to know all about beauty, fashion, the life of the social elite, and the traditions of high society. The readers are curious to get a glimpse of the life and marriage of the Bieber Family, and the magazine delivers exactly that through the various pictures and detailed interviews. After reading the article, the audience feels like they know Justin and Hailey a little bit better.

Works Cited

Hess, Kristy, and Lisa Waller. "Community and Hyperlocal Journalism: A ‘sustainable’model?." The Routledge companion to digital journalism studies. Routledge, 2016. 194-204.Serazio, Michael. "How news went guerrilla marketing: a history, logic, and critique of brand journalism." Media, Culture & Society (2020): 0163443720939489.

Smith, Arianna L. "Niche Journalism: Successful Steps in a Saturated, Modern Market." (2020).