RAND Study Underscores Need for Multi-platform Comms Strategy

The RAND Corporation has a new study
out that confirms what we’ve all observed for some time now: The American news
media are less objective, more opinionated, and more argumentative than they
used to be.

The study used a text analytics tool to identify word
strings used in 15 news sources (print, television, and digital) going back to
1989.  “The findings point to a gradual
and subtle shift over time and between old and new media toward a more
subjective form of journalism that is grounded in personal perspective,” RAND
says.

Interestingly, the study also shows the manner in which
the three studied platforms present news. Television has become more
argumentative. The print media has become less just-the-facts and more
narrative in nature. And digital has emerged as more personal and direct than
the others, “narrating key social and policy issues through personal points of
view and subjective references.”

This finding underscores the needs for brands to deploy
multi-platform strategies to tell their stories and defend their positions in
the public affairs space. They should pay careful attention to their digital
messaging to ensure it reflects the deeply personal nature of the medium.