Ying Zhang

These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.

Reimagining the journalism marketplace - finding new ways to serve information consumers

January 20, 2012
American journalism today is in crisis because it has not adapted financially to digital media, yet I believe we could turn this crisis into an opportunity to make significant improvements in the industry. Journalists and entrepreneurs are searching for business models that would generate revenue to help support high-quality digital media. No matter what forms they take, the newly emerged media products always should be consumer oriented. That is, the products should either meet new, unsatisfied consumer demands, or help reduce the costs of existing products or services in the market. Specially designed online educational clubs could help provide a new and effective alternative for which many consumers would be willing to pay. There is great social value in these clubs that would help draw support from outside the journalism field as well. The project could be implemented in three steps.

First: Foreign Language Enhancement

Journalists should start by investigating ways to combine traditional studies of foreign language with news delivery to make the learning process more interesting and cost-effective. The project is meant to establish an online portal for interested consumers to learn about different cultures, languages, and international news of current relevance. This site could also be used as a complementary tool for international affairs, world geography, or other international fields of study. An emphasis on music, video, and other modern multi-media technologies would help make the learning process more interesting and diversified.

The goal at this stage is to attract paid institutional group subscriptions. These, in turn, may help attract individual and business subscriptions. Paying small fees for an online collection of existing news stories and documentations would likely help reduce the cost of labor-intensive teaching methods. In addition to accurate, in-depth, and up-to-date foreign news stories, current computer technologies would allow student consumers at different learning levels or with different career focuses to practice particular languages of their choice. The clubs also would focus on learning a language as a way to learn the values and wisdom of different cultures, to learn how other peoples make their decisions and live their lives, and to learn how they solve their problems. Therefore, these bilingual clubs potentially would provide attractive learning tools for many consumers. More...

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A new approach for profitable foreign news reporting

June 10, 2011
Editor's note: The following is an abstract of an article by Ying Zhang: "A New Approach for Profitable Foreign News Reporting."

Mainstream media struggle to adapt to the Internet, which provides specialized information tailored to people’s interests. We propose that traditional media rise to the challenge and meet this need by establishing online bilingual news clubs to fundamentally improve our current foreign language study system, to help U.S. businesses compete more effectively overseas, and to diminish international threats by improving intercultural understanding. The proposed online educational clubs would set a basic model for revenue-generating journalism in the modern digital age. The revenue streams would include paid individual subscriptions, school and business group subscriptions, targeted advertisements, government contracts, grants, and public donations.

How it works

Print media does not provide sufficient information on international events and online news from current international websites often do not reach their intended audience. With strong emphasis on music, videos, and other modern multimedia technologies, the new bilingual clubs will help subscribers learn about foreign news, languages, traditions, religions, cultures, and current events in a more comprehensive, coherent, and systematic approach.

The proposed online educational clubs will offer users broad access to a large selection of academic and job- related contents from the proposed bilingual news clubs and from domestic newspapers. These clubs contain mostly news stories that describe how people connect academic knowledge to their work and how they use different technologies, innovative methods, or approaches to advance their career and improve the quality of their lives. Many newspapers can benefit if they agree to license their contents to the clubs for a syndication fee.

What materials are used?

This article is based on a personal business idea, with useful inputs from a number of professionals serving as consultants. The proposed approach will effectively utilize the existing journalism skills to help add significant values to our society.

Method

The proposed online bilingual clubs can help improve foreign language study since they can be used as complementary tools to support current language-learning methodologies and help make the process more cost-effective, interesting, and efficient. One of the primary purposes of studying language is for us to learn the values and insights that other cultures have to offer. By learning how other people make their decisions and live their lives, we can also find new ways to solve existing problems. These bilingual clubs will provide an engaging and active forum for subscribers and the opportunity for lifelong learning about other languages and cultures.
More...

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Reimagining the journalism marketplace - finding new ways to serve information consumers

A new approach for profitable foreign news reporting

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