Communication that shifts power

Communication that shifts power

TANKER

NAIVE.SUPER?
08.06.2008

While the information industry is sky rocketing like the towers of Abu-Dabi, editorial offices are being dismantled. Which strategy has been chosen by the media industry in order to meet this challenge?

The information industry is basking in sunshine. Growth conditions couldn’t have been improved were we sitting in a greenhouse. And I’m not thinking of the agencies in particular, the growth is most conspicuous in other sectors. Business- and organisational life has perceived the importance and, not least, the profitability of communicating professionally with the surrounding world. They’re expanding the communications departments, they’re providing the communications managers (often former editors) with titles like vice president and positions in the management groups. Finally, they have grasped what the media always knew – information is power. The same thing has happened in public life. In government circles, the number of consultants and communication workers is rising. In the ministries, communications departments are growing like housing cooperatives after the war, and in administrative circles media strategies are being created that should be the envy of even the most launchingwise promo babe.

And it’s not only the number of man-years in the communications industry that’s growing inversely proportional to the media industry. Those of us who have our workplace in the agencies perceive that principals are numerous and resourceful and, contrary to newspaper owners, willing to invest in knowledge.

The media industry has chosen an extremely predictable strategy in dealing with this development. The most positive among them are sceptics, the others are critical. But of what exactly are they critical?

We’re living in an information society. Whether one is working within government or administration, is part of the business sector or the corporative Norway, various participants have from time to time a legitimate need to communicate with the surrounding society.

However boring this may sound. And that’s exactly what it does. When so many are investing in professionalising their communications efforts, the reason is, not least, the perception that the media are uninterested in publishing anything at all, unless they are exclusively fed semi-manufactured or pre-cooked food, preferably served with a case on top. Editorial offices prioritise sports and culture, the political scene, comments and action news. Well and good, all of it. Profitability is the principal goal for the media’s owners, as for all other owners. And the editorial offices save money by letting the sources do the research themselves. My concern is consequently not the development itself, but the media’s attitude towards it. Editorial offices are surrounded by a wall of communication workers who are at least as professional and knowledgeable as any editorial staff. But instead of lifting their eyes from their keyboards in order to read the new surroundings, the fraternity is dipping their collective nose ever deeper into their own importance. That this happens at the same time – to push it to extremes – as cell phones are in the act of taking over as the central news channel, is elegantly disregarded.

But the more important the media feel themselves to be, the less important are they likely to become. The editor, Mr. Steinar Hansson (deceased) was among those who had an early taste of this. The project of transforming the east- end oriented party tabloid Arbeiderbladet (“The workers’ newspaper”) to the national mouthpiece Dagsavisen (“Today’s newspaper”), never became the revenge on our local Fleet Street – Akersgata – that I suspect my former boss dreamed of. The level of ambition was high, but the editorial office lacked the resources to reach it. And the readers were pretty lukewarm, as it proved.

Obviously, there is a connection between the crimping of editorial resources and the growth of the communications industry. The demands for qualitative knowledge among highly educated media consumers will not decrease. Consequently, a relatively significant power shift has taken place between those who create and those who publish news.

The newspaper “Dagbladet” is perhaps the one who most markedly feels the new information reality. They’re slimming down their editorial office to the point of anorexia, but at the same time the newspaper is perceived as less and less important as a media channel.

The information industry is well aware that directing the nation’s attention towards a particular case or view is best achieved through the newspaper “VG”. The juiciest bones go to Mr. Bernt Olufsen. And should he not feel hungry on that particular day, the titbits go on to the regional papers co-operating with “Aftenposten”. Consequently, not only is it “Dagbladet’s” own editorial staff who is weakened, the supply of material is also diminishing. For this flow is increasingly controlled by the communications industry. Scary? Yes. If “Dagbladet” and other editorial offices in the danger zone fail to change their strategy and manage to re-orientate themselves in the new information landscape, they might end up dying so slowly they believe they’re alive med.

Beate Barth-Nossum