NDM institution case study: News Corporation

News Corp is one of the world's largest media conglomerates.  

In the UK (under two subsidiary companies, News International and BSKYB), its news interests include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun & The Sun on Sunday (plus their online versions) in addition to Sky News & Sky Sports News.

News Corp is a cross-platform, vertically integrated multi-media company.

Some of the ideas we have discussed in class regarding the impact of new and digital media on News Corp include:

• Online subscriptions/paywalls
• Price promotions for newspapers
• Impact on institution content and its appeal
• Paid subscriptions for TV content
• Quality of journalism
• User generated content
• Social media/online news providers (Huff Post, Ampp3d etc.)

Tasks

1) Research News Corporation’s response to the growth of new and digital media by listing each of the institution’s brands (Sky News, Times etc.) Have any closed, changed or been in the news in the last 10 years for any reason?

News corp owns many brands including: 

-The Times 

-Sunday Times 

-The Sun

-News international

-The Telegraph

-Fox Entertainment

2) Develop examples of the impact that new and digital media has had on News Corp’s brands (paywalls, readership figures, audience share etc.)

New and digital media has had a somewhat negative impact on Newscorp brands. This is because due to the rise in online news, there has been a decline in the newspaper industry. An impact of this has been seen with The Sun, who recently had to get rid of their paywalls. 

3) Use what you have found out about News Corp to answer the following question:

Why and with what success are traditional media institutions adapting to the challenge posed by new/digital media?

New and digital media has now become the more dominant and more preferred platform from which audiences prefer to get their news due to which traditional media institutions are being forced to adapt to the more popular platform. This rise of online news has caused significant losses for the newspaper industry as audiences have other means of getting news more easily and money-free too. An example of this is through citizen journalism, which has been growing among readers where non-professionals are able to record the news and post it on social media such as Facebook and Twitter where other people can access this uncensored material and gain another view to the news. Something which cannot be done through the usual newspapers. Many Traditional news institutions have adapted to this change in technology and put up online news websites where the news is more accessible for its audiences. The Times and The sun had put in place a paywall from which they could regain some finances but seeing the readership drop due to this, The Sun scrapped its paywall. This shows how audiences have more power and how Traditional media institutions are not having much success even having adapted to the new and digital media.