Журнал массовых коммуникаций и журналистики

Technological Advancement in the Written Press and New Reading Patterns: A Press Survival Perspective in Mauritius

Abstract

Nirmal Kumar Betchoo

Today’s printing media evidences fundamental changes that are taking place particularly in terms of the type of publication and certain new forms of development affecting the printed news business. Gone are the days when people spent long hours reading broadsheets and grasped all the main information provided therein. Today’s written media has changed dramatically and this has been more pronounced with the introduction of desktop publishing and the virtual media. Presently, all major newspapers have their websites and these are continuously being modified to offer better reading comfort to readers. Alongside, there is also the possibility for readers to interact directly with the journalists and provide constant feedback to them. Newspapers have also changed their format and presentation. At the present time, traditional newspapers are getting smaller in format, downsizing from the broadsheet format to the Berliner or tabloid format. With more flexibility to improve presentation and navigation over the pages and sections, newspapers are better aimed at providing general and specific-related themes. This research paper analyses the development of the press in this new millennium and tends to relate both the written and the virtual media as a means of consolidating readership when it is globally known that the readership of the written press has dwindled. It aims at finding out how newspapers survive in today’s world, how they are dependent on new forms of technology and how they will have to review their strategies to keep themselves in business. It concludes by showing what strategies newspapers will need to retain readership which has become more uncertain with more demanding readers.