| Based on the monitoring report of competitiveness of China's press published by the Press Secretary of General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China, the mass newspapers in Changchun region have always been absent in the'Top 20 of Evening News and City News papers in China'. Why hasn't Changchun region produced mass newspaper with strong core competitiveness?This article has pointed out that the core competitiveness of the newspaper is referring to the influence with which other newspaper's can not be replaced. And the influence is primarily referred to the impact of dissemination contents of the newspaper on the readers, that is, the newspaper standing out relying on the excellent content compared with other newspapers. The core issue of competition in the newspaper market is the newspaper itself. Therefore, this paper has explored the causes for the current market structure of mass newspapers in Changchun region in the view of their contents.The first part of this article has conducted the overview of mass newspapers in Changchun region, explaining the origin, significance and methods of this study. The mainly mass newspapers in Changchun region are'New Culture View','City Evening News','Changchun Evening News'and'East Asian Economic News'. The press circulation and advertising of'New Culture View'are both on top of these four newspapers, yet only occupying a tiny portion of market, with respectively the shares of 33% and 39.4%.Obviously, the market concentration is not high. That why Changchun region hasn't produced mass newspaper with strong core competitiveness has been the primary reason of the studyIn the second part, the dissemination contents of the four newspapers have been described, compared and summarized mainly by the content analysis. According to the principle of equidistant sampling, this study has extracted the 5th,10th,15th,20th,25th,30th newspapers per month from July to December of 2007 of'New Culture View','City Evening News','Changchun Evening News'and'East Asian Economic News'as samples to ensure that the sample coverage can be extended with the whole week. In addition, taking into account the specificity of the newspaper content, the study has also cited the case study method, selecting the news report on the'two sessions'of Changchun in 2007 of four newspapers to carry out case studies. Statistics on the amount of information have showed that none of the four newspapers has had the absolute competitiveness in the amount of information. And the amount of information on Weekend Newspapers is significantly reduced, leading to a blind competition zone. In view of the content setting, the four newspapers have showed a high degree of convergence, and the unreasonable information structures with difficult to meet the needs of target audiences. The local news has always been the focus of competition, but'New Culture View','City Evening News'and'East Asian Economic News',the provincial newspapers have been limited in Changchun City, competing bloody in the limited market, failing to explore the market in other cities in the province. And also the homogenization phenomenon has also appeared on the local news, with disaster news taking the majority while information about survival and development of public and construction of cultural inadequate. The last problem is that the designs of front pages of these newspapers are so similar that it is not easy to separate a newspaper from others, especially headlines being demagogy.With the full analysis of the contents of the four newspapers in the second part, this article has pointed out that the development of the mass newspapers in Changchun region have been into a predicament. Firstly, contents are highly in homogeneity, failing to provide competitive products with differentiation. That the fining on omitted information, homogenization on news sources and news value of the criteria has led to the homogenization on content. But the root of the problem lies in the homogenization of the market positioning. Even if the newspaper has its own brand positioning, but in practice it hasn't been reflected in the interview, writing and editing. The reason is that all of the four newspapers have pursued the mainstream and non-mainstream groups, leading to the confusion of position, with content homogenization. Second, the news has been entertained and can't effectively take the role of'Environment Guard'. Putting the economic interests above everything else, the newspapers have taken a number of short-term behaviors, such as taking the crime news, violent incidents, day-to-day events as the focus of reporting, to make sensational effects with the information of the survival and development lacking. Communication studies have showed that:'Communicators' attitude for the needs of audiences can be divided into three categories: indifference, meeting and guiding. Truly responsible communicators should not be limited to meet the sided needs of the readers and audience, but maintain a critical spirit, and give appropriate guidance to the readers and audience needs to be more reasonable. Mass newspapers showed effectively take the role of'Environment Guard'. And this is a long-term plan to win in the market. Thirdly, competition is highly concentrated, with newspapers failing to explore the markets in other areas of the province. All the newspapers want to win in the known limited market, denying possibility of opening up a new market, only concerning about the threat of competition at this stage. The newspaper competition in Changchun region has been in intensity. That how we find a new growth point and realization difference operation has become the imperative for the newspapers. Fourthly, brand awareness is weak, unable to forming a strong influence and competitiveness newspaper brand, with market concentration low. Maximizing the brand effect, setting up a good media image in the minds of the readers will not only enhance the social impact of the media, and effectively guide the public opinion, but also can be favored by advertisers, so as to achieve win-win social and economic benefits.The reason why the development of the mass newspaper in Changchun region has been the current plight could be spotted on specific media environment of Changchun which has rooted in the political attributes, economic attributes and the contradictions of public property of media. As a result of wrong market-orientation of media, media workers haven't considered the development of newspapers from the point of long-term with the result of a large number of newspapers expanding rapidly. Newspapers has depended on the market more and more, gradually losing its role as a objective, free and rational public space talking space. And newspaper has become the game field for political rights and market forces. The contents of the newspapers haven't taken the responsibility of media. However none of the newspapers have been died because of the interference of executive power. So the number of newspaper has been in malignant expansion. In addition, the media workers are part of the culture of the local media, and they usually imitate each other according to existing norms when making news, leading to the homogenization of news content. And they think that learn and adapt to the etiquette is the most secure way to share the benefit in the market. Therefore, there is no newspaper which has broken the existing media norms and eventually could become the possible big winner with core competitiveness.Whether in academia or industry, the studies on the mass newspapers in Changchun region are very scarce. The research of this article will have certain practical and applied significance to help the mass newspapers in Changchun region improve the content, so as to enhance the core competitiveness. |
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