The ability to build community has been one of the biggest selling
points for local news media. When circulation numbers began declining
and audience numbers dropped, local news media increased ad rates,
because they argued there were still highly relevant to their local
community. As a new report indicates, the Internet may be challenging
that.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has a new study
on the growing role the Internet plays in building community. According
to the Pew study, about 60 million Americans said the Internet had
played an important or crucial role in helping them with at least one
major life decision in the past two years. While the report does not
indicate what sites and sources users are turning to, it does tell us
that the Internet is quickly becoming one of the most relevant aspects
of everyday life.
The report dispels the notion that Internet users are some how less
connected or more aloof, living in a virtual world where Web surfers
never interact with real people. To the contrary, the report shows how
Internet users often have stronger and deeper ties to their respective
social networks. The Internet: It isn’t just for geeks!
If
you want to understand the power of online communities, look no further
than the growing phenomenon of social network sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Xanga.
MySpace.com is fueled by hundreds of thousands of young people around
the globe, though not exclusively teenagers, who build online
communities around groups of people with whom they share similar
interests and passions, regardless of where they live. For years, local
news has relied on geography as being the most important factor in
determining one’s community and social networks. Sites like MySpace
show how that is no longer the case.
If local newsrooms are going to maintain their role as a community
creator and aggregator, they need understand this phenomenon. To date,
most efforts by local media to build community online have included
offering discussion boards, the occasional poll or encouraging readers
to comment on an article. However, there are some signs that some media
outlets are beginning to realize the power of moving from aggregating
audience to building community. Recently, Minnesota Public Radio’s
parent company, American Public Media Group, made an investment in gather.com. In 2003, Knight Ridder Digital invested in Tribe.net, another social network. Both of these are early attempts to already capitalize on local news media’s audience. [Author Disclosure: This Chaser works for Knight Ridder Digital.]
Like
most of the Internet, social networking is still in its infancy.
However, in a few short months, sites like MySpace.com have demonstrated
how online communities can quickly become highly relevant to people’s
everyday life. By not developing our own online communities, we risk
losing some of our relevancy in the lives of our readers. Let’s make
sure this is not another opportunity that got away.
