The brave new world of digital media

For someone who works at a school of journalism, Jeffrey Cole isn't optimistic about the future of newspapers. Dr Cole directs the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, University of South California, which has been studying the effect of the internet since 2000. Cole used to claim more than a decade ago that the newspaper industry had only 25 or 30 years of life left. Today, he feels he's been too optimistic - he predicts now that most newspapers have fewer than five years to go.

"I think in America the newspaper will go away in five years," he states categorically on telephone from his office in Los Angeles.

"Of course, some, like all media, will survive. The New York Times has an extraordinarily healthy future digitally. In Europe and Australia I feel newspapers, as they exist now, will survive for about ten years."

He then warms up to his theme - of evolution and rebirth. "I think they will gain an advantage if they go digital, are available 24/7 and incorporate audio and video." Pause. And then the punchline: "I see a great future for what we call newspapers today, just not in the paper format!"

Cole could very well teach a screenwriting class: he uses drama to illustrate his points with aplomb. Listen to this: "I feel the Internet Revolution is as important a development as the Industrial Revolution was to mankind."

He has the authority to make such a statement stick. Jeffrey Cole has been at the forefront of media and communication technology policy issues in both the US and internationally for the past 25 years. He runs the World Internet Project, which has studied the impact of the internet every year since 2000, beginning in the US and now covers 28 countries around the world. The UAE is one of them.

"I became convinced in the 1990s that the impact of digital technology, first the internet and now mobiles, was going to be far more powerful than television," he says.

"We lost a great opportunity with television in the 1940s. We wanted to measure the impact of digital which we knew was going to be even more powerful." 

Where is the digital world heading?

The project has thrown up some interesting facts about where we are going digitally. "The biggest change is that mobiles have started to take over," he says. "Initially, it was a tiny part of the internet, but now it has pretty much taken over. We believe that PCs are going away and that only 46 per cent of people who own PCs still use them."

The other trend he sees is the rise of user-generated content, specifically social networking. "We think it's a part of going mobile. In the next few years everybody will and they will want a much more personalised experience where they will get the content they want, when they want it, how they want it and the way they want it - completely customised."

He is of the view that laptops will give way to tablets. "I think any person who uses a tablet would want to get rid of his PC or his laptop," says Cole.

The World Internet Project is more than mere statistics, he says. "The real benefit [of the project] is to provide information to policy makers, to companies, on how and where technology is changing our lives, to point out problems as they arise, for example to see whether there is still a digital divide, or broadband divide, to look into how people use technology, and to ensure the technology is used to improve the quality of life by getting the information into the hands of the people who make important decisions."

The project shares the information with the countries it is based in. "We have worked with communications ministers around the world in broadband development and we provide advice to the communications ministers of Australia, Qatar, the USA government and many governments around the world," says Cole. "We also work with companies who want to try to understand how to reach customers and get their messages across to them."

The project has determined that social networking is one reason for the proliferation of the internet - and how that has affected marketing. "More people log onto the internet to chat than to check their mail," says Cole. "This is due to teenagers in the developed world - 98 per cent of them are active in social networks. There is also a growing number of people on social networks over the age of 60, so we see the ways it has changed marketing, in the way you reach people. Advertisers now prefer to reach people through the social media." 

The trickle effect of the internet

The social impact has been noted too. "From what we have seen of the Arab Spring in the Middle East, it has become a political tool, too," says Cole. "It is all that and more; social networking has become the most powerful use of the new digital media so far."

Education is another sector that has been transformed by the internet. "It has changed how we communicate, how we work and how we play, but I think its greatest long-term impact is going to be how we learn," says Cole. "The true impact of the changing education curve will be seen when we see teachers who have themselves grown up as digital natives take centrestage.

"We think the internet will provide great libraries and quick resources for people who live in small towns, from the smallest emirates of the UAE, to the remote parts of Africa - the way in which we learn, find and share information will all change because of the internet."

Interesting social facts have emerged from the study so far, such as that of digital diversity. "We see digital diversity in almost every country - the first users to go online were who we in America call geeks and nerds - young men, well educated and wealthy. But as penetration increased we found - for example in most countries where it was around 60 per cent - that there were more women online than men. In most parts of the world where penetration is over 60 per cent, the minority - the poor - were also going online in large numbers."

Cole expects to see internet penetration going up towards the 100 per cent mark in developed countries in another 20 years. "People will realise that it is not just internet, but also a way to be constantly exposed to the world. We expect it to be accessible anywhere and anytime we want - cars, offices, airplanes, etc."

The Emirates Internet Project - part of the World Internet Project - has determined that internet penetration in the UAE is 77 per cent. 

Entertainment evolution

Cole paints a futuristic view of life as internet usage increases - with people creating content online, music, films and television being streamed, books losing ground along with newspapers and CDs. The film business has been shrinking for a long time, Cole believes. DVDs will become passé, and cinemas will grow smaller. "The traditional movie release schedule is disappearing, and at the right price you will be able to watch a film at home on the same day as its theatre release," says Cole.

"The internet has changed most aspects of the entertainment industry - at the end of the day very few people can create quality content that most of us want to watch. So I feel that people who can create that kind of content will find the platforms - tablets, PCs - to survive. Power goes to the best content creators."

In the music industry, digital will soon pass non-digital in revenue, CDs will be gone in five years, partly due to environmental reasons. Music will become an ancillary business to performing, merchandising, etc. "Power will devolve to everyone," predicts Cole.

Amazon.com already gets more revenue from digital content than books, says Cole. "When I realised that either I or my heirs will get rid of my books in future, I donated all my books except the 40 I couldn't part with. Self-publishing is now the smart choice. The authors will have the power."

And what about the phenomenon called Facebook? "Facebook will keep growing for about five more years, especially in developing countries, and then it will begin to recede," is his dampener. "It will be the same evolutionary path as the early social networks such as MySpace and Bebo. It will not be replaced by a single global community but by smaller ones."

But in the end, it will all be governed by advertising - much like it is in the real world.

"I believe that if digital content has to survive it is going to be largely through advertising," he says. "Most people don't want to pay fees or take subscriptions, that is why most content will have to be supported by advertising. It will be more relevant as the advertisers will know their target. But you will see a lot of it [advertising on the internet) in future. Somebody has to pay for the content."

So, it's not all over yet? Cole laughs: "All media will survive, but most will be smaller players in a digital era."

By the way

"The Emirates Internet Project (EIP) focuses on the social, cultural and political impact of internet adoption in the UAE and its different population groups whether UAE Nationals, Arab expats, Westerners or South Asians," says Dr Ilhem Allagui, lead investigator of the EIP and professor at the American University of Sharjah's Department of Mass Communication. "For instance, the study looks at the changing patterns of media usage under internet adoption, how the internet use changed social relations, professional relations or others." She adds, "We've also looked at online social activism patterns and the perception of regulation and political expression and activism online by UAE users." Some of the findings:

• The internet has clearly supplanted all other mass media as the most important source of information in the UAE.
• More than half the internet users in UAE spend the same time with their friends since adopting the internet, and about 40 per cent spend the same time with their families. However, about 40 per cent say they spend less time with the family since their adoption of the internet.
• E-commerce is still at its infancy due to security concerns.