Discussion of Development of Ambient Journalism and Communications Technology

Gutenberg era is over. Now the news is not only accessible through announcements, letters, posters, and newspaper all of which are real tangible physical. No information was also obtained from the conversation mouth. Times have changed, digital communication technologies evolve and become a powerful means of communication with the real-time character. Digital communications, especially those connected to the Internet, also evolved from the e-mails, websites, blogs, to social networking sites.
The development of communication technology has brought has brought a number of changes in the life of the world community. With the rapid development of software, the interaction between humans and technology objects are also getting easier. Advanced information technology has managed to combine the properties of conventional communication technologies is massive with computer technology that is interactive. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as convergence, the merging of traditional telecommunications with the internet media as well. Convergence is the mixing of different types of media, telecommunications and computer industries, and the incorporation of various forms of media products are in digital form (Burnett & Marshall, 2003).
Many advantages are obtained by using communication technologies. Technology makes communication faster and easier, technology makes people more productive and efficient, and help enhance the value of communication technologies (Gehris & Szul, 2002). This facilitates the exchange of information digitization of text, audio, visual, and motion because it was the lack of standardization of forms (Straubhaar & LaRose, 2004).
Social networking site to be one of great potential for the spread of the news with superior characteristics in terms of sharing stories, too crowded population of social networking site users. From the user's Facebook alone, there are 500 million active Facebook users worldwide. This means that 1 out of 13 people are active users of Facebook. When used as a state, with a population of 500 million, Facebook would be the third largest country in the world. The most statistically significant for journalism is 48% of young Americans say that they know the news via Facebook. Not to mention, there are 100 million active Twitter users in the world. Studies conducted Java et al (2007) states that there are four reasons why people use Twitter: daily chatter, conversations, sharing information, and news reporting. There are two of the four reasons that are relevant to the world of journalism, which is sharing information and reporting news, and the remaining two also has the potential to be relevant to journalism.
In accessing the output of journalism, now the audience is no longer fixated on the choice of the form of the conventional mass media such as television and print media. The development of communication technologies encourages the creation of new ways to deliver the news. This is where software plays.
Media organizations are now more creative in finding new ways of delivering news to the public. Before the rampant online news, the audience was presented with a mobile service journalism where news media organizations sent via text message on your mobile phone. But of course people must first register themselves first in order to enjoy this service.
With the rise of the internet and the more people have access to the Internet triggers online journalism, journalism that is delivered through the online medium. Examples of online journalism itself is kompas.com and detik.com. The interesting thing is the fact that the actual mass media organizations engaged in online journalism actually comes from conventional media, especially the print media.
Online journalism is then developed into ambient journalism, in which the distribution of news is not only done with the display on the website, but also through a variety of media, especially social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. In ambient journalism, media organizations as much as possible to make the audience have access to information from a variety of things around.
The emergence of journalism in a variety of output is somewhat affect the print media world itself, especially in terms of circulation sales. Technological advances in the field of communication and information, making the rapidly growing online media and as capable of replacing the function of print media. In the United States, which have first taste of journalism online, a decline in print circulation. Within six months, the months of April-September 2009, the national circulation of print media in the U.S. fell to 10.6% (Bugis Post, 2012).
Furthermore, the circulation of the print media in the U.S. is getting down. According to data from the Audit Bureau of Circulation ABC in 2010, circulation of print media in the U.S. has decreased significantly. USA Today circulation fell 13.58% to 1.83 million copies per day, The Los Angeles Times down 14.74% (616 606 copies per day), Washington Post fell 13.06% (578 482 copies per day), and The New York Times fell 8.47% (951 063 copies per day) (Hall Press, 2011). In Indonesia alone, the circulation of the print media has fallen. In the pre-reform era, the circulation of the print media in Indonesia in total is 17.7 million copies. However, over the years, that number shrunk up to 14 million copies alone.
It is clear that more people are now choosing to access information through new media over the instant and practical. This is a dilemma for the print media organizations. Decline in circulation would be a scourge for them because circulation is an indicator used by advertisers in deciding whether the company will advertise it or not. It is inevitable that the influx of corporate advertisers into the coffers of the major currency for print media.
In addition, the development of online media also create online media advertising revenue rose sharply to 400%. This makes the online media flourished. This development, in my opinion, to 'kill' the print media industry in the period of approximately 30 years.