Dubai: Media industry is facing a dramatic disruption in the way it has been creating content, distributing it to consumers and monetising the content, a panel of experts said at a special briefing on “Next Media Revolution” organised by the UAE government as part of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils 2016.

Patterns of consuming news has changed over the years. Social media platforms and citizen journalists are competing with traditional media on both content generation, distribution and revenue.

In a recent Reuters’ survey 51 per cent of respondents said they use social media as their regular source of news content while 12 per cent said that it is their main source while Facebook was by far the most important platform for finding, reading, watching and sharing news.

“There is a big shift happening the way media is consumed across the world. Consumers have greater choice on what they want to read or watch. Clearly there is a big change in the way the content is created and disseminated and the consumer behaviour is also changing,” said Noura Bint Mohammad Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs, and Chairwoman of the Media Zone Authority Abu Dhabi.

Availability of news and content 24 hours a day across multiple platforms from multitude of sources is making it a difficult marketplace for both consumers and content generators.

“People have access to various media content free of charge across social media platforms. Social media will play an important role in the future and influence the way the media industry will evolve. The impact of social media on traditional media has already started to show and the industry will have to work hard to cope with the rapid changes that are happening,” said Mona Al Merri, Director General of the Government of Dubai Media Office (GDMO).

Shake up

While increasingly content is made available freely across multiple platforms, Al Marri said the credibility and accuracy of content will be the differentiator in the future.

With the arrival of social media, experts said there will be a shake up in the industry. “In the future there will be a significant fall in the number of news organisations. I don’t believe that there will be takers for multiple news organisations creating the same content. We will have fewer news organisations providing specialised news content and there will be centralised distribution channels like Facebook and Google. I am very worried about the concentration of content in a few hands,” said Claire Wardle, Research Director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism.

Historically news industry has been very competitive and it used to compete with itself. But in recent years it is competing with Silicon Valley. With technology giants entering the news business, many players are going to be driven out of business.

“Although we don’t require too many voices out there to deliver credible news, in this new wave of media revolution driven by tech firms, my concern is that we could lose some of the few independent voices in the business,” said Wardle.

Breaking news

The popularity of social media and citizen journalism is increasingly applying pressure on traditional media organisations to innovate and be quick. “Increasingly distribution of breaking news is being taken over by the social media. I would personally like the media industry to lead news dissemination for greater accuracy and responsibility. But I also believe that organised media and social media can coexist,” said Al Merri.

With a large number of news organisations and social media platforms competing for customers, increasingly the onus is on news organisations to command the trust of its customers, said Aaron Sherinian, chief communications and marketing officer for the UN Foundation.

“There is greater need to invest in journalists. People want to consume stories about evidence, good story telling and about solutions for things like issues of refugees, hunger, poverty, clean water and sanitation and sustainable energy. Along with technology adoption in media, there needs greater emphasis on training good quality journalists,” said Sherinian.