Running head: THE RISE OF DIGITAL JOURNALISM COLLAPSE OF PRINT MEDIA 1

The Democratization of Journalism
Alan B Egge
University of Maryland University College

The internet has fundamentally changed how news is distributed by democratizing the creation and consumption of news. It has allowed news to be published and read by anybody at little to no cost. Print media has struggled to hold their own against a ubiquitous and often free competitor. Advertising revenue for the ten largest newspaper companies peaked at $48.7 Billion in 2000 and has since plummeted to $23.9 Billion in 2012. The 2012 figure includes revenue from digital versions of the papers but this adaptation has not stymied the decline. On the surface, these numbers suggest that Neil Postman's claim in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that America was fulfilling Aldous Huxley's vision of a world where, “no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As [Huxley] saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacity to think.” (xix) Newspapers have historically been the most important technology to make one think so is does their decline spell our decline into an isolated, apathetic dystopia? To the contrary, I believe the collapse of the newspaper and the rise of internet journalism is creating a better informed and more socially aware society. Digital media is doing precisely the opposite of what Huxley, Postman and much of the mainstream journalists fear. More people have access to more vastly more information than ever before. The success of alternative media websites such as The Drudge Report and The Huffington Post have shown that people still want news but seek a greater variety than can be offered by a single newspaper. In the last few years, several major newspapers have either been sold or been