The Changes Of U.s. Newspaper Industry In Information Age And Its Constructive Value To China

The U.S. newspaper industry has been influencing the global development of newspapers and media in modern history. However, in the information age, the traditional media tycoon was challenged, giving rise to a waning and shrinking industry. Thereby major U.S. newspapers use every conceivable way to cope with the big challenge, and the effect was quite fruitful. China can learn from the transitions of the U.S. newspaper industry.The thesis contains six chapters. It starts with a review on the historical development and milestones of information age, while targeting the study on the first decade of the 21st century. With the development of the internet technology, the environment in information age has differed greatly from that of the 1990s. Thus simmering problems existing in the U.S. newspaper industry finally bring about crisis. In the information age, the mode of transmission has become more interactive. The dividing line between the transmitter and the audiences has become more and more vague. Information consumption shows the characteristics of fragmentation and audience-oriented. Newspapers, among other media, start to merge with mobile facilities, thus, E-newspapers and Mobile phone newspapers come into being.In Chapter three and Chapter four, while elaborating on the challenges that the U.S. newspaper industry has suffered in recent years, such as declining circulation, decreasing readers and falling profit, the thesis points out the causes of the difficulty were not only coming by outside new media, but also aroused from within, including underlying problems like stereotyped profit mode and over-commercialization as well. In coping with these challenges, the U.S. newspaper industry has taken all around measures including founding digital editorial department, transforming traditional mode of covering and editing; while attracting the middle and old aged readers, newspaper in education programs were launched aiming at the young and youth groups; the industry weighed less on advertisement income, trying hard to expand the pay-reading mode; establishing interdependent newspaper industry by integrating the newspaper industry chains.Chapter five and Chapter six provide a foothold for the value of the research. Based on the study of challenges and corresponding measures towards the U.S. newspaper in information age, the thesis tries to compare and contrast the U.S. newspaper industry and the China counterpart. China newspaper industry is shouldering more pressure than the U.S. due to the underdevelopment of the newspaper market, imbalance of the industry, and unsophisticatedness of employees as well as the audiences. To sum up, the thesis contributes a series of constructive suggestions to the development of Chinese newspaper industry, using the successful responding measures of the U.S. for reference, while being very faithful to China's reality.