The traditional press in Switzerland has been a big part of the society for a long time now. In fact the first publication of the “Feuille d‟Avis de Neuchâtel”, which is the oldest daily paper in French dates back from 1738. Amazingly this newspaper is still printed today, under a different name, but nevertheless it shows how durable the newspaper is. If we look at the other media in Switzerland, the press is the oldest that is still consumed regularly today. Historically it has been one of the most liked and respected media in the country.
But in the last few years the press had to face new problems and concurrence. The so called new media arrived on the market. The arrival of the Internet in particular changed the dynamics of the processes of information in the world and obviously in Switzerland as well. Newspapers had to face a concurrence they never had to deal with in the past. And this was not only in the information domain but in the advertisement market share as well, which of course is a huge part of their financing. From then until nowadays the newspapers had to find new methods to be able to keep up with the concurrence of the always growing Internet. In 2010 information websites on the Internet are not the only major concurrent to newspapers. Mobile Internet, iPhone applications, blogs, videos, podcasts all respond to a consumer need that the newspaper cannot answer. The public is always more demanding of these new information methods, which causes problems for the press. The newspaper in its traditional form, which is on printed paper, is in a pivotal time and it can be added to sum up that “new media technologies represent a profound challenge to the future of journalism.”(1)
To fully understand the problematic, it is important to measure how big the influence of the new media is on the problems of the newspapers. This will be one of the principal points of this master‟s thesis. In order to accomplish that, a few aspects have to be covered before being able to answer the problematic.
The context of the media landscape in Switzerland will be discussed to have a more precise idea of the past and present situations of the media businesses that are going to be studied throughout the paper.
A quick chapter will be dedicated to the advertising market in Switzerland, because it plays such an important role in the financing of both media. After that new media and newspapers businesses are going to be shortly explained to understand better how they function. The following section will discuss the competitive advantages both businesses have over each other and shortly after there will be a chapter on the differences of the information in Switzerland since the emergence of the new media.
Those parts of the paper will lead to the main pieces of the paper which are as mentioned before to try to define the influence of the new media on the problems of the traditional press, as well as the role of the government and the future of both businesses. In these sections the possibility of new media and newspapers working together will be covered. Additionally a look at the changes in information quality will be conducted. Thereafter the role of the Swiss government in the preservation of the press will be discussed and the ways they can operate are going to be evaluated as well. To close this thesis an argument on the future of newspapers and new media that this will contain a personal opinion on what will happen next for both media.
In this master‟s thesis, the problematic of the free newspapers in Switzerland will not be treated. Although they are a part of the problems the newspapers have to deal with in this economy and have to be taken account of when treating the subject no chapter will be dedicated to them. The thesis focuses on electronic new media and Internet in particular.
1 Gunter, p 102