Newspapers booming at the bottom

Neotrad Librarian sends in this post:

ARTICLE: Developing a thirst for news, By Harry Sanna, The National, December 06. 2008

The boom in newspapers in India repeats a boom in the US and Britain as they enabled mass literacy. Now it is India's turn, with the Times of India doubling the NYT in circulation. Meanwhile, my local newspaper just cut staff ... again.

Comments

[Thaddeus Jankowski]

Various questions occur to me...

1) So why are newspapers in America losing ground, while growing in New core?2) do newspapers enable literacy, or does literacy provide a market for newspapers?3) You seem to suggest new core v. old core is the primary dynamic...is that the only large force acting on the industry?

[hof1991]

per article, it is part status symbol. Reading is high status in New Core, while living on the Net is what you do on the train to show your status. In really connected countries, paper newspapers are too slow. Newspapers dropped during the presidential campaign despite very high interest because those who were interested got their news faster than paper allows.

It's one reason that shows that do news and interest/comedy do well, while straight news doesn't. By the time you watch them, you already know the news, so you need value added.