Moving Forward: Nostaglia Product

In an attempt to archive some academic papers I've written over the past few years (relying on the hard drives of sometimes faulty PCs has left me tired and frustrated), I continue to occasionally upload some of my old work to this site. Here is one I wrote for a class on Focus Groups in the Spring of 2012. The participants' last names have been omitted.

      There has been a lot of recent talk about the supposed death of print media, with newspapers closing up shop at a rapid pace and writers being laid off and sent to the journalism unemployment line – local alt-newspaper The Village Voice's layoffs have become legendary (Stoeffel, 2011). Consumers have been gravitating towards digital news outlets for a number of reasons: most of it is free, easily accessible, and delivered almost as instantly as it's written. Why go through the trouble of leaving your house to pick up a newspaper (either one you purchase or one you come across for free like The Village Voice or AM New York), when the news can come to you? Many websites provide equal if not better content than their in-print counterparts; The New York Times now charges for online digital subscriptions and with it comes added perks: blogs, video and audio reviews, qualitative charts, etc. When money gets involved, the people want more.

      There is however a downside to the currently intimidating digital shift. While you could previously own collections of newspapers and hardcover and paperback books, the future seems to imply that consumers will be reliant on a digital device to sort out their purchased content (be it the Kindle, I-Phone, etc.). As you are unable to print out the digital media, you will never be allowed to physically feel the paper possessing the words you own (not by way of copyright but via the ownership of a copy of the material). If Amazon goes out of business, those with a Kindle won't be allowed to access their purchased material any longer. Our personal library of reading material – and listening material, as CDs are dying out as Itunes reigns supreme – are turning into something that we can no longer walk to the store and purchase; we can only wait patiently and download. My focus group will gauge people's opinions and alternate views on the shift towards the digitizing of print media.

      In looking to illustrate the change and its consequences, I have come across a number of sources that will prove helpful in crafting my final analysis. As the topic is one which leans heavily to up-to-date, data-specific coverage, much of the works referenced will be pulled from online sources.

Looking From The Outside In

     In “Print Media to Digital Media – Much Change in a Decade or Two?” from Ask Enquiro (2011), the reader is given an in-depth look at someone who worked in the print media business for a number of years. “Many years ago,” the author writes, “in what feels like another life, I used to work in print media. For 16 years, in fact. Not even on the hi-tech print production side of things, I was on the inky oily world of logistics, circulation, distribution, and business administration. Oh how I miss that. Not.”

Economic Data

      Lynne Johnson's informative slide show, “Is Print Dead? How Digital Media is Changing the Face of Publishing” (2008) helps to crunch the numbers and provide useful quantitative analysis. The New York Times article, “Reports Gain in Net Income” by Amy Chozick (2012) sheds light on the newspaper's digital subscription sales: “Despite gains in paid digital subscriptions at the company’s largest newspapers, first-quarter operating profit declined 24.3 percent, dragged down by an 8.1 percent drop in advertising revenue.....Print advertising declined 7.2 percent and digital advertising revenue fell 2.3 percent in the group, driven in part by continued softness in real estate-related classified ads and national display ads.”

Financial and Ecological Concerns

      For more numerical evidence involving company profits, Nancy Gohring's article, “Kindle Sales Soar but Amazon Mum on Actual Numbers” (2012) helps to craft the book-side of my research. “Some analysts believe Amazon makes very little money on the sale of Kindles, hoping to make money instead on e-book sales,” Gohring writes. “That could be one reason Kindle sales didn't seem to have much impact on Amazon's profit. Its net income for the quarter dropped 58 percent to US$177 million, compared to $416 million in the same quarter last year.”

      Perhaps consumers are gravitating towards digital media due to its eco-friendly prospects. The article, “Digital VS Print Media: Who is the Eco-Heavyweight?” by Deborah Corn (2010) guided me in this direction. Corn writes that “the transcripts from a discussion on NPR yesterday are now posted, once again weighing the environmental pros and cons of both digital and print media. The purpose? To try and determine which is truly more sustainable and therefore, the “better” option. The conclusion? Well, it depends.”

      The questions designed were written on April 19^th, 2012, with additional concerns and ideas added leading up to the intended focus group. The focus group was run by a fellow colleague and myself on Tuesday, April 24^th 2012 at The New School University (in the Parsons building) beginning at 8:15PM. There were five participants: Wilfredo, Rebecca , Stephanie, Brad, and Will. The focus group took place in an ample sized classroom on the twelfth floor and lasted approximately fifty-five minutes. We used our participants to gain insight into digital and print media, with my colleague focusing on journalism marketing and myself inquiring on the accessibility and rapid growth of digital devices and available content. As most of the interviewees were in their twenties (Wilfredo recently turned thirty), the focus group was ideal for tapping into the interests and reluctance of one of media's most sought after demographics.

      The focus group proved successful in the diverse answers provided by an eclectic group of individuals. There was an overwhelming sense of nostalgia present for print media, a desire to hold onto the past for both historical and collectable purposes, that grounded the discussion in a debate between the pros and cons of what lies ahead. Some more vocal than others, the participants' answers were respectful and precise, and the associative nature of the group lead to thoughtful responses; their honesty was punctuated by brief slips into vulgarity.

      Stephanie's reasoning for digital media as an example of a new wave “social dilemma” started the conversation off strongly. Needless to say, her concerns were shared throughout the group. Stephanie commented: 

If I'm in a coffee shop with her (Rebecca) and I can't....I don't know what the hell she's reading with a Kindle. But if I see her cover and we're, we have an interest, 'Oh my God, we're reading the same'....It's like a social interaction. We're like closing ourselves into this thing. You can't even, you can't, 'oh let me just peak over....' And look like a freak! Reading to, you know, see what you're seeing there. It's totally a whole different dynamic in society in how people interact with each other. It's crazy.

     Archiving was also an issue of concern for the focus group, the purchasing of digital content which only appears to exist in the unforeseeable digital realm an unsettling reminder of the death of packaged media. This lead to a lively discussion on the “nullification of the physical.” Brad started it off by confessing, “when I buy something off of Itunes, I feel like I half own it. Like I kinda have it. I've got a form of the song that I wanted to own...” Will reiterated (and fully fleshed out) this point:

I think that like the interesting point that comes up from that stream of conversation is like the devaluing, the continuing devaluing of physical things. And that kinda sounds counter-intuitive because I think that in our modern culture, you want to say like 'oh, people value material things too much' but it's actually kinda causing a devaluing of it because it's like, you'd go and buy a book and be like 'first edition....cool!' But nobody gives a shit about them anymore. And it's interesting to me because I'm like, okay yeah, when you go and buy a CD, you have it, and it's a material thing, and that gives it value.....the fact that you can hold it. But now it's like who cares, because you can just get this digitally. So it's interesting. What material things do you have now that could be digitized that would nullify the value of the physical.

      With an increasing number of prosperous digital counterparts, newspapers, books, and DVDs are falling by the wayside for being too permanent. Digital media allows consumers to be selective with their choices, to make quick decisions and to aid them with their busy lives. It comes down to the need to be given options, to work for those with short attention spans looking for the “right” right now. Most series created exclusively for the web run five to ten minutes an episode. Coincidence? As my participants are all currently living in one of the five boroughs of New York City (an area where people believe themselves to be busy at all waking hours), they related to the idea of a lack of time leading to swifter decision-making skills. Brad humorously shared his own personal experiences:

I think it's a demand on kinda where you are. Because like us being in an environment where we are....bombarded with media....we're less inclined to spend time on everything because we've got to get to everything else....It's like, to use kind of an analogy....before I lived in New York, I liked to take my time walking places. I wouldn't mind it and it was cool. I would slow my ass down, take my time. But now that I'm here and I've gotta walk somewhere else and I've got places to be and someone is being slow in front of me, it's like, get the fuck out of my way, c'mon.....things to do today.

      Both consumers and critics of digital media, the focus group helped shed light on the complexity of the frequently described “digital divide.” The pros didn't outweigh the cons as much as they lined up against them. “It's unnerving,” Will noted, “because even though it's never lost, you technically never own it. So yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting point how nothing is tangible in that respect.” This inability to fully accept what's to come was shared by all, even though it would now seem impossible for them to live without some of its advantages. Hypocritical or theoretically against the inevitable? The focus group provided as many questions as it did answers.

      It's become a cliché of sorts to complain about what the future holds, each technological advancement conjuring up almost as much applause as groans these days. With an economic obsession with the new, something gets left behind and lost forever. I felt that the focus group solidified this feeling of discontent and acutely voiced their uncertainty with their predicament: how can one stand their ground and purchase in-print newspapers when they feel like their one purchase isn't enough to save these institutions? Why continue purchasing (and thus contributing to) packaged media when they have already been told that the format will be obsolete in a few years – and that there's nothing they can do about it? 

     Rather than try as they might to stop the digital onslaught, they attempt to find ways to work around it. Some will read academic texts online and then print them out on paper to highlight, write over, and share a higher concentration with the material. Others will download music online to copy to CDs, “forever” saving the digital files in their personal physical collection. Some use digital media to interact and engage with the personal: in an ironic turn of events, Facebook, Twitter, dating URLs, and other social media outlets use computer screens to get people connecting with each another.

      The focus group helped to vocalize my growing concerns and allowed me to realize that those interviewed shared mutual feelings and a restrained sense of enthusiasm. This is not to say that the evening surveyed a group of pessimists – if anything, it showed how willing we are as a collective whole to adapt to the technological wheel that is forever turning – but that our generation is old enough to have experienced life without the over-saturation of the internet and its add-on devices and yet young enough to try to have engaged with them. So much of the noise gets drowned out by those that keep moving forward, attempting desperately to ignore the media which surrounds them. After all, we feel we're too busy and unwilling to change/upgrade the consoles we have grown accustomed to. The problems that are gored never cease to go away, however; it just goes on to be confronted by a younger generation ready to experience “the new” for the very first time.

      This past January, USA Today (2012) released an article by Greg Toppo, “Obama Wants Schools to Speed Digital Transition,” which informed readers of President Obama's plan to rid schools of common textbooks in an exchange for expensive e-readers: 

Obama's goal: an e-textbook in every student's hand by 2017.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will recommend today at a summit of industry and education officials that states modify the textbook adoption process, allowing K-12 schools to use taxpayer funding once reserved for printed books on iPads, Kindles and the like — as well as software.....

While up-front costs for tablet computers are high — new iPads start at $499 — [Genachowski] says moving from paper to digital "saves a ton of money" in the long run. "We absolutely want to push the process."

      Has the digital revolution hit the classroom? To conduct a focus group such as mine amidst news of the President's plans is to work with a striking relevancy towards consumer attitudes. Ecologically commendable and cost efficient in the long run, the implementing of e-textbooks in the classroom goes far beyond scanning paper texts and uploading them onto Blackboard. And to think, years from now, today's digital climate will serve as comforting nostalgia for those born with no previous reference point. The future is perhaps less imposing than our current struggle with the present and our hesitation towards change. Viewed another way, it''s not about the other side that's so discomforting, but rather the struggle to push ourselves over the top to get there.