The Predicament And Way Out Of The Paywall Model In China In The New Media Era

In 2012,the third crisis of China's traditional newspaper industry broke out.Affected by various factors such as the economic downturn,the change of the media ecological environment and the change of consumer attitudes,the circulation and influence of paper-based newspapers have declined,readers lost a lot,and newspaper revenues plummeted.The traditional newspaper industry urgently needs to break through the profit dilemma and reinvigorate the social influence of paper media.In the same environment of the decline of traditional paper media,the global newspaper industry is striving to find a new mode of newspaper development.The digital transformation practice of traditional media in Western countries has been ahead of China for more than a decade.The success of the US newspaper's pay-wall strategy such as The New York Times and The Washington Post,as well as the frustrations and obstacles on the way to success,it provides experience for the transformation of digital media and the practice of Paywall model in China.The process of establishing "wall" in China's newspapers and periodicals is not plain sailing.The plight of Paywall in China is mainly concentrated on three aspects: the dilemma of content,the dilemma of audience and the dilemma of business model.The content dilemma is mainly manifested as serious homogenization of news and grim situation of digital news copyright protection.The audience's dilemma is mainly manifested as the audience's low willingness to pay for news,subscriber lack of loyalty to the platform.The dilemma of the business model is mainly manifested in the contradiction between the information sharing of the Internet and the information closure of the Paywall,and the conflict between the profit purpose of newspapers and the public interests of the audience.The reasons behind these dilemmas are as follows: the media structure of "One city with multiple Newspaper" makes it difficult for China to produce super-influential newspapers;the media convergence of "simple addition" means that the media do not pay enough attention to the differences among the communication platforms,which leads to the homogenization of content among the platforms;the current situation of "data first" industry affects the production of content,and the phenomenon of news anomie frequently occurs.The awareness of copyright protection of digital news products is relatively weak,the phenomenon of infringement of copyright is continuous,however,the high cost,long period and low compensation price of rightsprotection make it difficult for news media to protect their legitimate rights and interests;the lack of awareness of brand building and weak content marketing ability of newspapers and periodicals leads to the low trust of users on the platform,which further reduces the degree of interaction with news products.Based on the successful experience of the Paywall model in the United States,combined with China's national conditions,this paper tries to find the way out of the Paywall model in China from three dimensions: product Strategy,content strategy and user strategy.From the perspective of product strategy,in order to guarantee the scarcity and high quality of news,and break through the dilemma of News Copyright,We need to push for the gradual improvement of relevant laws and regulations,improve the copyright awareness and professional ethics of journalists,and implement the regulatory responsibility of the news dissemination platform;to enhance the media's identification and audience's loyalty,the media should pay attention to the brand building and enhance the marketing ability.to ensure the healthy and sustainable operation of the media requires multiple profit models.From the perspective of content strategy,on the basis of providing personalized paywall for the audience,we should also ensure the sustainable supply of original high-quality content;Newspapers and periodicals should pay attention to their user groups and market positioning,and select vertical content areas with a fixed audience as the entry point for the practice of Paywall model.From the perspective of user strategy,we must use flexible pricing strategies to attract audiences and cultivate the audience's payment habits;to break the user loss dilemma,we need to establish positive feedback for users and provide users with a smooth product use experience;use Freemium model and other means to attract more young users and develop them into potential subscribers.