Future for New Age Media in developing countries

Post for Nov 13th, 2010

Over the past few weeks I have examined various aspects of new age media in developing countries. I looked at how digital media is relevant in third world regions in spite of the digital divide and how it is evolving. I examined it’s impact on culture, education, advertising, marketing and healthcare sectors along with the associated challenges. From my observations, the third world regions seem to be in a rapid stage of advancement with respect to adoption of New Age media.

As the last blog entry for this series, I am going to examine what the future entails for New Age media in developing countries especially at the grass root levels.

According to the United Nations, more people have access to a cell phone than they have access to a clean toilet! There has been a tremendous growth in mobile technology in developing countries including Kenya, India, Brazil, South Korea and Afghanistan. An interesting blog from the Worldbank observes that this growth is going to make social media ubiquitous in the developing countries.http://blogs.worldbank.org/ic4d/looking-at-the-future-will-mobile-social-media-fuel-improved-governance-in-developing-countries

That opens a wide area for transparency and improved governance in developing countries. There is going to be voice, accountability and freedom of expression in some of the restricted regions of the world and it is going to be difficult for censorship and corruption to make inroads into essential grass root changes that can be effected through the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, etc. There are already plenty of examples (please refer the link above) where social media is being used to improve transparency and governance.

The entertainment and media markets are projected to register a higher rate of growth in developing countries. Due to the shift to the digital space, ‘newspaper extinction’ seems to be highly predicted for the western world. However it is not the case with the developing regions. An article on the Economist http://www.economist.com/node/11792392

says that circulation has gone up more than 22% in the last five years in developing countries. India, China, Pakistan and various Asian countries continue to see growth in the industry and the trend is definitely on the upward curve. This could partly be attributed to the digital divide, where rural populations still rely heavily on newspapers for their daily news and entertainment gossip. Advertisers still thrive in these markets. So the future for newspaper industry and traditional media is still bright.

This does not mean that digital media is not making inroads. I see a parallel growth and equal opportunities for both. In the sense ones’ growth is no necessarily harming the other as both mediums target a very different socio economic demography. Livemint featured an interview with Andrew J. Swinand, President, Global operations, at Starcom MediaVest Group on the future of digital media in India and China. http://www.livemint.com/2009/09/28214559/The-future-of-the-digital-medi.html. Andrew feels the industry is poised for growth even though the rate of adoption has been slow.

I would like to end this blog with some trends that I think is shaping up or will shape up in the future to bridge the digital divide through new age digital media in developing countries.

· Mobile phones and digital access will get cheaper and penetrate most households. Young and old alike will adopt this technology.

· Digital technology enabling the Agriculture sector and farmers will be given priority for development and use in the future, especially since developing countries thrive on an agricultural economy.

· Older adults and less literate population will move to the online platform for social networking and e-governance.

· Journalism will shift towards citizen journalism and stories will emerge from the laymen using simple digital technology like a Flipcam.

· E commerce, social marketing and social networking will be adopted at a rapid pace to reach not just the urban but also the rural masses.

One of the advantages for third world regions in being slow adopters of digital media is that they get to learn from the mistakes of the western world and incorporate improvisations for their target audience.