A sphere of polyphonic chats, loosely knitted by members of Shin's seminar.

Amid the increase of the Hispanic population in the United States over the past few decades, their ethnic media is facing many challenges due to the decline of readership and audiences among the younger generation, according to Professor Jessica Retis of the Department of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, who was the speaker of the latest Biotope Salon on January 19.

Professor Retis is a visiting scholar who is investigating the ethnic media of the Latinos in Japan, who mainly comprise of Brazilians and Peruvians who are descendants of Japanese immigrants in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

During her presentation, titled “Latinos and the Media in the United States,” the professor introduced the background of the Latino population, which helped participants hold a general understanding of the diversity of the 55 million Hispanics in the U.S. and their media. By coincidence, the presentation came a day before the inauguration of the new president who has expressed taking a tough stance on immigration.

Professor Retis noted the importance of recognizing that Latinos are not a homogeneous community but is a mix of people from many different countries of origin. This is evident when looking at some Hispanic hub cities and the history of the flow of immigrants: New York has large communities of people from Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, Florida’s Latino community comprise of Cubans, while Mexico is the motherland to those in California, Texas and other boarder states. Interestingly, over the past few decades, Latinos have spread geographically into many regions outside the hub regions. This trend, according to the professor, was due to the aging of local communities where Hispanics became their new labor force.

Although the Hispanic population is regarded as an important market, their presence is much smaller when it comes to political participation. Among the entire Latinos in the country, half of them are eligible voters but only half among them have actually cast their votes, which means that their voices are not necessarily represented, she said.

Meanwhile, the younger Latino generation is increasingly U.S.-born and do not necessarily have strong command of Spanish as they integrate themselves to the American society. Unlike the elder generation who only speak Spanish, the younger Latinos, especially the upper and middle class audiences, will rely more on the mainstream English language media, even though they also reach out to Hispanics in Spanish language. In addition, the fact that more people rely on social media as major source of information is a challenge for media organizations who are suffering from decline in readership – a trend observed globally. Radio continues to be a strong media among Hispanics, but the most popular programs are on music and entertainment, which means that some Latinos may have very limited access to news, the professor noted. Under these diverse and changing conditions of the Hispanic population, the Spanish language media needs to think hard on who their audiences are and what their agenda is, she said.

The 2016 Presidential Election saw more Latinos cast their votes compared to previous elections. A survey showed that while immigration issues have been one of their largest interests but the Latino voters were actually most interested in the economy. Education and health care issues were also of major concern among them.

But when Professor Retis and her students analyzed the media’s presidential campaign coverage, she said it became clear that both mainstream and Hispanic media reported heavily on Trump’s characters and his rhetoric on Twitter than actual political issues that needed to be discussed.  The findings seemed to indicate the need for the media to think harder on what it should do to serve the public at a time when the new presidency is raising its attacks on the press.

(Setsuko Kamiya: MA student of GSII)

(Updated June 21st, 2016)
The following is a tentative schedule of biotope salon from July 2016 to March 2017.
Generally from 13:00 to 14:30 of third Thursday every month.
The venue will be the Gakkan Commons 1st floor of the Fukutake Hall.

July 21, Oct. 20, Nov. 10, Dec. 15, Jan. 19, Feb. 16, Mar. 16

There may be some special Biotope Salons. I will inform people of Mizukoshi no Yukari of them.

Shin Mizukoshi

As more people read the news on digital platforms, the newspaper industry is facing many challenges to survive. In his presentation at the Biotope Salon on May 19, Mikko Villi, Professor of Journalism at the Department of Communication at the University of Jyväskylä, showed how the newspaper businesses in Scandinavian countries are dealing with the rapid changes surrounding them.

Under the title “Nordic newspaper publishers’ business models, current challenges and future outlooks,” Professor Villi introduced a joint research project he and his colleagues at the Univ. of Helsinki and the Univ. of Turku performed in 2016 which studied newspaper companies in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

The first part of the report gave an overview of the industry of the three countries between 2005 and 2014.

• In Norway and Sweden, both had over 70 newspapers published 4 to 7 times a week, while weekly free sheets are dominant in Denmark.
• Newspapers in all three countries saw a significant drop in circulation in that decade: Norwegian newspapers saw a 23 percent decline, while its Swedish and Danish counterparts saw a 30 percent and 35 percent drop respectively.
• This downward trend was also reflected in the decline of advertisement revenue for newspapers: In 2005, Norwegian newspapers held 43 percent of the entire advertising market, but the share dropped to 27 percent in 2014. Similarly, ad revenue for newspapers fell from 45 percent to 21 percent in Sweden, while this dropped from 47 percent to 24 percent in Denmark.
• Meanwhile, online advertising saw a sharp rise. In Norway, online ad revenue made up only 14 percent in 2006, but this jumped to 38 percent in 2014. In a similar manner, Swedish online advertising rose from 15 percent to 43 percent, while Danish online ad shares grew from 14 percent to 44 percent in the same period.

The second part of Professor Villi’s report showed a more detailed situation of the three markets, which was based on interviews with the newspapers of each country. Here are the excerpts:

• The general trend in Sweden was that although print income was still significant, digital income was growing fast. Newspapers agree that obtaining consumer data is becoming increasingly important for developing online content and performing targeted advertising, and they are coming up with ways to get readers to become registered users. Some have also noted the need to focus on paying readers in order not to rely as much or at all on ad revenue in the future. Meanwhile, some papers have also experimented with “robot journalism”, where articles are automatically written and do not require human intervention.
• As Norway is not a member of the European Union, neither the print nor the digital editions have to have VAT imposed, which makes the subscription prices cheaper for consumers. Norwegian newspapers are the most innovative among the three countries and they are experimenting with different new business models. For example, Schibsted is building its own data and service platform to fight against Google and Facebook, while others such as Aller are in cooperation with the two social network services. Meanwhile some local newspapers have also joined forces by networking digitally.
• Denmark, where freesheets have strong support from consumers, many commercial newspapers are still financially stable as they are backed by foundations. But being foundation-based means they lack flexibility, making it difficult to experiment with new businesses outside journalism. In order to stop the decline in subscription, some have run aggressive marketing and sales campaigns, while others have held exclusive events with readers to build a community with readers. Some have combined the digital subscription with a mobile phone subscription. They have recognized that consumers are, after all, willing to pay for online media content.

From the multinational survey, the study concluded that the newspapers are testing many new businesses such as providing personalized content while being flexible with the pricing, and creating joint digital platforms with competitors. However, no one has yet to come up with a strong answer. Many of the interviewees admitted that a new business model was necessary, as subscription and ad revenue will not be sufficient to maintain a viable business. They are also seeking for ways to obtain younger readers.

During the discussion after the presentation, participants acknowledged that the challenges facing Nordic newspapers were very similar to what Japanese newspaper industry and those in other countries are facing. The fact that no one has a good solution yet is also mutual. As one interviewee of the research noted, providing a strong journalistic material such as investigative reporting may be a key to survival, although that alone will not help generate income or win readers. We would like to see the same research performed a few years later to see whether or how things may change.

Setsuko Kamiya: Master Course Student of iii