If the digital world is made up of 1s and 0s, then digital journalism in Pakistan so far, is a big fat 0!
In recent years, the Internet has grown in size and influence in Pakistan. With up to 29 million users (16% of the population) having some access to the Internet in 2012 — up from 17.5 million at the start of 2009 — the medium is playing a larger role in the dissemination of news. But is it journalism?
So far, this is more through independent blogs, and less through the shift of major media groups towards digital journalism. At the same time, established media groups are increasingly seeking to engage online consumers, also through blogs and via social networks. That said, most Pakistani user-generated content is uploaded to social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr, and not to the blog sections of commercial media groups.
There is no doubt Pakistan has one of the fastest technology adoption rates in the world and this is reflected in the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In fact, this growth would have been even faster if it was not for the slow adoption of latest infrastructure and technology on the part of the government.
We are still a developing country, and a poor one at that, where the adoption of technology can be cost-prohibitive.
There is no question that messages, images and videos posted on social media like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube have an increasing influence on news production. The continuing ‘Arab Spring’, the riots in London in the summer of 2011, or 2012’s Hurricane Sandy hitting the American north-east coast, and the way social media created pressure in the Shahzaib Khan murder case are all high profile examples where ordinary people contributed via social media to the narrative of major news stories. ‘News’ is no longer only defined by the professional journalist. The story might begin and end with the voice of the audience on social media. This is changing the way news organizations do journalism. But it is still more of an aid to traditional print and even TV journalism, and not so much a new form of journalism.
But while the death of newspapers — as the Internet becomes more and more popular — is still not imminent, there is no doubt that the advent of technology, digital media and social media has changed the way we communicate. And it is changing the way we cover the news and disseminate it.
News is no longer something you can only get delivered to your front door or TV. Anyone can create and distribute information via quick access to the megaphones of social media, e-mail and connectivity that live in our pockets.
For better or worse, the democratization of media has made for a lot of noise on the web, which means the quality, authority and relevance of what we share is that much more critical to breaking through the clutter.
But in Pakistan we are still predominantly a paper-oriented system and the Internet is merely an extension of what goes into print.
Television is by far the biggest medium for the transfer of news in Pakistan and is perfectly suited for an audience that is largely uneducated and not prone to reading. It is no exaggeration to say that before the Internet gave us Facebook and Twitter, radio was the closest thing we had to a social medium and the phone-in was the most interactive format out there. Times have moved on, however, and journalism everywhere is adapting to the realities of the digital era in which we live, in order to reap the benefits. Journalists are turning to social media to engage with their audience as well as to add strength, colour and variety to their reporting.
The bulk of e-journalism in Pakistan is because of private bloggers and there is a thin line that separates this from e-activism. Independent blogs are increasingly influential in Pakistan and often serve a watchdog role over the government and traditional media. Although the blogs receive a small number of unique visitors, they have a wide impact as they are regularly consulted by mainstream media journalists and producers.
Popular blogs that routinely shape and critique mainstream media narratives include the media watch blogs Café Pyala and Pakistan Media Watch, the current affairs blogs Teeth Maestro and Copy Paste Material and culture blogs such as Karachi Feminist’s Oil is Opium.
There are no official records of the media-spend on digital journalism and most media groups are unwilling to cough up exact numbers — as I said earlier journalism for the most part is still practiced in the traditional way and then it is replicated on the Internet as well.
Spend on digital journalism is minimum at best because that is the nature of the beast; it is not a very cash-intensive sector. There are no web reporters, no mainstream web-only newspapers and so far no plans for anything like that. Ad spend so far is the biggest indicator of the growth, or potential growth of digital media.
According to the available numbers
(all stats from Aurora’s own data in Aurora magazine) total ad spend in Pakistan has been growing steadily, increasing by 20% in 2011-2012, and by 18% in 2010-2011.
In comparison, Internet ad spend grew by 79% in 2011-2012 — a big jump from growth of only 15% in 2010-2011.
Let’s look at the breakdown of earnings by the top websites in Pakistan. The list is all made up of local websites to indicate what local content is attracting advertising with the exception of Google which is still the largest earner in our online space.
This is a clear indication of the shift towards the web, but again, so far it is passive, media companies are not really acting as a catalyst to feed this drive. Yes, news is number one. It is hard to say whether this is because Pakistanis are news-obsessed, or because large media groups were the only players willing to invest in the fledgling online space.
Jang, Geo and Dawn dominated for a number of years, but as new online entities emerge, the share of the overall Internet ad spend for the big three has plateaued.
In terms of earnings from advertising revenues, the top blogs in Pakistan are technology-related blogs such as Redmondpie, Sizlopedia and ProPakistani and blogs featuring tutorials and tips for new bloggers, including Wpbeginner and Mybloggertricks.
Urdu-language blogs are also on the rise, though the limited availability of Urdu fonts online has discouraged user-generated content in Pakistan’s national language (Urdu books and newspapers employ an italicized version of the Arabic script called nastaliq, but most blogs and websites offer the same fonts used by Arabic and Persian websites; since Pakistanis are unfamiliar with these fonts, they remain hesitant to communicate online). Owing to limited broadband availability, photo and video blogs are yet to gain in popularity.
Despite the growth of the independent blogs, the blogs of established media groups dominate the Pakistani blogosphere (but with mostly under-generated content).
The top five blogs in Pakistan in terms of traffic are published by the largest Urdu-language daily Jang, the English-language dailies The Express Tribune, Dawn and The News and the privately owned Dunya TV channel. The English-language papers, in particular, maintain rosters of dozens of bloggers who are allowed to submit posts through online forms; increasingly, independent bloggers prefer to publish their posts on established news sites because these offer greater exposure as well as compensation for all contributions.
Notably, the only mainstream news portals that rank among the top 10 sites in Pakistan featuring user-generated content are the Urdu-language Jang newspaper and the English-language daily The Express Tribune, which indicates how much more popular social networks are than blogs in Pakistan.
But it is clear that social media has become an important source for news and with the rise in the use of smartphones and tablet computers this trend is likely to continue.
According to global statistics, today at least one in five people come across a news story through a social network like Facebook or Twitter. Trends show that increasingly, people don’t actively look for news but instead the news finds them on social media. In effect, people tend to “stumble upon” news.
The modern demands of today’s readers are well catered by the swiftness and new communicative forms of digital media. One of the most unique features of this type of journalism is that it includes every individual’s contribution and hence, is not confined to a specific section of the society. More participation generates more awareness.
In an age when many decry the death of print media, the world of digital publishing should be celebrating. Web consumers and advertisers crave a higher value journalism and storytelling, and it’s our challenge as publishers and creators to meet that demand.
The writer is a print and broadcast journalist specializing in information technology based in Karachi.
