The Internet Generation, the decline of newspapers and the rebirth of photography
The Internet generation is extremely visual and has the capacity to consume an incredible amount of data in very short period of time.
This generation is a crossover between the Millennials and the Generation Z, with an extremely short attention span, and is the generation that more than anyone else will bring about the end of the newspapers as we know them.
The Guardian, one of the main UK newspapers, has recently cut 250 jobs in the hope of breaking even in the next three years, and many other big names are selling their advert spaces to the higher bidder, not to the most relevant for their publication.
The Internet generation and the traditional press’ inability to capitalise on the digital environment, is one of the causes of this decline.
But what does the future look like?
How many minutes of written contents?
In the past seven years I have contributed almost 350 posts to a photography blog. Despite not targeting the Internet generation as my main readership, I have noticed a trend in the performance of certain articles; no matter the subject, the longer the article, the lower the overall results.
The Internet generation doesn’t seem to be interested in the finer details or subtle nuances of the language, at least not if it slows them down. How many times have we looked at an article here on medium and considered if the title was good enough to justify the article’s 9 minutes read?
Journalism, especially the investigative type that digs deeper into facts, is extremely important for our society, but it feels like it needs to evolve to maintain a large readership. Alternatively it needs to re-focus on a very niche sector composed by very few members of the Internet generation.
Is the Internet generation wrong?
I am a strange communicator. I love getting to the point almost bluntly. I love when in few seconds I can understand the overall context of a conversation, and I adore when a concept is expressed with the least possible number of words. From this perspective, I would rather read a very short essay of few hundred words, more than a long and overly detailed dissertation.
Isn’t this the same approach of the Internet generation?
Are we sure they are in any way wrong in being less attracted to text, or are they simply evolving the way we communicate?
I personally believe that there is an evolution going on, and it is neither positive nor negative. The lack of focus I see even in myself while browsing the web is certainly worrisome, as it empties a text of those beautiful subtleties; however, I also see many young people of the Internet generation looking for a more frugal, to the point communication.
Photography reborn
In professional photography circles, especially those in which photojournalists hang out, the future is described as grim. It is almost impossible to be a resident photographer for a newspaper and the Internet generation is seen as unable to recognise and appreciate the quality of a good photograph.
But is it really so? Is it true that the Internet, according to small factions of the photojournalistic world say, is destroying photography?
I am of the opinion that it is far from that. We are on the verge of another change. Generation X was the one who read a lot (let’s blame a very slow internet back in the ‘90s), the Y got caught in endless videos on YouTube, but it is the Internet generation that with its shortened attention span is bringing the immediacy of photographs back in trend.
See our previous article from Scott Watson on Image vs Text.
It is just a different way of consuming photographs; today’s teenagers seem to be competent and “trained” in skimming through hundred of images than the rest of us. Flipping from noise to noise in order to find the one image worthy of their attention; however, this is not the way photographs were seen and consumed twenty years ago.
Photography is reborn with the Internet generation, but it is also playing by a completely different set of rules than before.
The Internet generation does not pay for content
One of the main issues while approaching usage rights for photographs, is the constant decline of rates. A good friend of mine and great photojournalist once laughed on the irony of selling one image for 10p. The reality is that the Internet generation is not accustomed to paying for content; it does not pay for music, for text, for video and not even for images, but every cloud has a silver lining.
Instead of asking the Internet generation to pay for our content, we can just ask them to help us understand what photographs are “noise” and what photographs they find relevant or interesting. Let them be the short attention span machines they are, and in doing so giving them the possibility to express themselves.
As a photographer, I value a good insight in my imagery much more than a couple of pounds or even pence in rights.
How can photographers ride this rebirth?
This is a very difficult question to answer. How do we balance the need of having an income and being able to pay the bills with giving our work out “for free”?
Maybe it is time to rethink the idea of “exposure”.
This word is nastily used in spite of “free usage”, but times are changing and we need to expect more. Iconic photographs have done their course, and despite knowing there will be many more single frames to come that will kidnap our souls, we (as photographers) need to start thinking that maybe we need to change our business model and our usage rights policy.
I think it is time to try something new. Give photography a new change. After all, if we are discussing the short attention span of the Internet generation, we have to remember that an image is worth 60,000 words…
