A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives Before He Dies - But Where Does He Get That Material?

Hello and welcome to my blog!

My name is Christie and I am in my final classes for my Master's degree in Strategic Communication. I have been working in the nonprofit industry for about two years but unfortunately I was very recently let go from my job. I am originally from the great state of Massachusetts. I am also a cancer survivor with a myriad of other health problems that I battle out of my way every day. I am a mom to two dogs and two cats with no intention of ever being anything more than the "cool aunt" when it comes to human children.

This blog will be focusing on how media is ever-changing and evolving every single day. I hope to explore the possibilities and road blocks facing communication in the modern age compared to the past. Once a week I will be exploring the depths of my mind and also making the effort to hone my writing skills. Earning a degree in strategic communications will also heavily play into the writings on this blog as emerging media and the strategies of others influence the writings of our world.

All of my weekly posts will appear here: https://christiecommunicates.blogspot.com/

I have created this blog to explore the depths of communication and make an effort to share those opinions with the masses. In the past I worked in a very different career field but it still heavily involved relied on communication. I was a strength and conditioning coach for high school basketball players for four years while earning my B.S. in Exercise Science. Upon graduation I moved to Texas in order to train professional athletes for a highly respected athletic performance company. Training is constant communication between two or more people, whether it is in the athletic realm or training volunteers as I have done for the past two years.

 This week I delved into how exactly Americans access the news and how this could affect news organizations in the future. In these times people want to read important news quickly, they don't feel like they have time to read a lengthy article in this fast-paced world. The headline of an article is critical because of this fact as well as the statistic that four in ten people read an article based solely on the headline. According to the American Press Institute the highest percentage of Americans follow the news throughout the day and those who have smartphones are more likely to use online-only news sources. Smartphones provide the ease and convenience at having news, both local and international, directly at their fingertips. But, they have also seen that the means of receiving their news is less important than the source of the news itself. How does this affect news sources with only online or newspaper access? Does the lack of a television channel of their own put them at a disadvantage? Well, from another statistic provided by the American Press you may suspect that to be the case. Traditional media is still important but 87% of people get their news from the television. Companies such as The Times do not have television networks of their own so that 87% of people don't need the access to newspapers or online articles.

The tradition of the newspaper is still a contender in the world of media despite the growth of online news, including social media. Social media is said to be the least trusted of all electronic news alerts. Think about your own social media page, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever you may use. Do you really trust the articles your friends post? Have you ever opened an article that someone reposted just to find that it is either false or satire? Like I said before, the headline of an article is critical. The headline is what gathers interest but in the online world it can be a double-edged sword. People see the headline and find it interesting, but they don’t want to go through the trouble of reading the article – they just see the title and share it on their social media page. Sharing articles without reading them is a factor contributing to the fact that only 15% of people trust news they see on social media.

While newspapers are surprisingly keeping up with digital media sources that does not mean that trend will continue. The digital world is continuing to grow and change the way that people get their news. Just the other day my mother bought her very first smartphone. When I asked her why she, the self-proclaimed woman that hates the internet, decided to switch phones she gave me a very interesting answer. My mother said, “I need to keep up with the times” which I feel correlates with the way media is headed as well. Companies are changing the way they tackle news stories and how they organize their newsrooms. The world is changing and becoming more digital with every passing moment and causing a cascade effect in every corner of our lives. Newspapers are still bringing in revenue for companies, but that statistic is slowly starting to change through the development of digital strategies within organizations. Americans are still getting their information many ways but from what I can see the digital world is making its way into the market of print news.

Come back next week for more of Christie's communications!