The impact of technological change on newspapers

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The newspapers above either ask or charge for a fee for their product. The Guardian (first image above) asks for a fee of £5 monthly to contribute however this is not compulsory. They allow you to subscribe in order to 'fund and support the Guardians journalism' and for their revenue. The Times and The Telegraph however has compulsory pay in order to get a more in depth story. The Times asks for £1 per week for 8 weeks to get 'access to quality journalism' and The Telegraph offers 'premium' articles which can be accessed by paying a monthly subscription or they offer access to one per week with registering for free. The Telegraph also offers a year of Amazon prime with subscription to their website in order to entice readers. The Daily Mail is not included in the picture above however like the Guardian the subscription is voluntary. Reader participation is encouraged on social media as the newspapers may have an account on various platforms of social media which can be shared and broadcasted to the public without people actively searching for the paper. Big stories in particular generate many shares and 'likes' as the coverage can be shared throughout social media due to popularity. Platforms such as snapchat offer subscriptions to the newspapers or magazines in order to have those particular papers at the top of the notification page which generates more readership.
You could apply Shirky's End of audience theory with these online news websites and platforms as the consumers decide what news they want to view based on subscriptions. Behaviour can vary across social media sites as stated in Shirky's theory, for example you may subscribe to a particular newspaper on one social media platform yet when a big news story from a different paper is broadcasted and shared by peers consumers are directed to read that story as opposed to any other as it is available with one click, proving that the consumer becomes decisive and behaviour is less predictable. Arguably this theory may not apply as frequent customers may tailor stories to their preferences and only go to that particular site to get their news, they would therefore have predictable behaviour and multiple people with these preferences may form a mass of audience that can be related to and cared for throughout the paper in the media (for example readers of the Guardian may want more political and factual journalism so may actively seek for the content and the paper can comply with the subscription).