This week, Vice, the digital media and broadcast giant, unveiled its Metaverse headquarters to deepen its connection with its community. To keep up with the new trends set by the ever-growing technology industry and to survive in the long term, the media industry will have to keep reinventing itself. Perhaps the British media should learn from Australia, Scandinavia and the Gulf; where efforts to ensure media longevity have drawn praise.
Today, more than half of Westerners rely on social networks for information. It is precisely for this reason that Australia passed the world’s first media legislation regarding Google and Facebook early last year. In an effort to save the media industry, this new law requires Google and Facebook to negotiate a fair payment structure with news outlets, which allows their content to be used on news feeds. Nadine Dorries, British Minister for Culture, announced in a maintenance this week that it was considering setting up a similar system in the United Kingdom.
The rise of social platforms has been both a blessing and a curse for the media. Although in direct competition with traditional media, many journalists have developed large communities of readers on these platforms. The strength of the media industry today is also based on the diversity of formats on which it can operate. From live podcasts broadcast on Twitch to short documentaries on Instagram, in 2022 the media industry will have to play with different formats. Not only will this allow more creativity, but it will also be an opportunity for traditional media to compete with the giant multinational hubs that have already conquered the British public, whether it is Buzzfeed, Brut or Vice.
An even more spectacular format was used by the Financial Times after Mark Zuckerberg repositioned Facebook as a “meta” company with its products aimed at running on virtual reality, sometimes called the metaverse. In fact, the newspaper famous for its print edition filling the lobbies of office buildings around the world, ended the year with a virtual interview of Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, which was set in the metaverse.
In addition to embarking on the Metaverse, the media industry will also need to consider the role of AI in its reporting. For a time, media companies have maintained a global presence by collaborating with each other, complementing their resources to maximize the impact of their reporting.
AI has the potential to play a role here. Although journalists fear that robots will take their place, some major Scandinavian media, such as Sweden’s Mittmedia, have already started using this technology to generate short, automated articles. At best, automation could allow journalists to be more creative in an industry, allowing them to focus on more analytical stories. However, given the declining margins, this technology could still have a bigger role to play, as was highlighted during the JournalismAI Festival, which was held at the end of 2021.
Expanding and reaching new audiences will also be essential for the survival of traditional media. In this regard, the world should look to the United Arab Emirates, where efforts to draw media attention to them go hand in hand with their efforts to establish themselves as a media hub for the Middle East. Nowhere is this global perspective clearer than in hosting global events, such as Expo 2020 UAE, an impressive platform that shows allies how Gulf interests align with the rest of the world. No doubt that same vision will be showcased in November, when Emirates News Agency hosts the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi and highlights innovation within the industry.
At the same time, efforts should be made to establish and consolidate relations between the media and other entities. As an opportunity for media based in different parts of the world to reach new audiences, partnerships help media grow internationally. This is the case of the partnership between the Saudi Green Initiative and the London Evening Standard to produce content on the actions of the kingdom to fight against climate change.
2022 will be another breakthrough year for the media.
Media has always been concerned about its long-term future, but with the metaverse, automated journalism and the growing importance of new social media platforms, there’s plenty of reason to think this could be another game-changing year. industry. . To ensure their commercial sustainability, media leaders must learn from proven models on a global scale.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is president of the International American Council, a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist, and a member of the advisory board of the Harvard International Review. He can be reached at [email protected]
