Rupert Murdoch declared this week that the “current days of the internet will soon be over”.
In his opinion, making newspaper content free online is a “malfunctioning” model – and, in financial terms, he’s probably right.
However, as the Comment is Free section on the Guardian site explores, even if papers do move to a paid-for format, as the Wall Street Journal has done to great success, that doesn’t mean that the same content won’t appear elsewhere online for free.
Acceptance of the idea that social media is now having a real impact – and not just on the media agenda – seems to be taking hold.
It was a story broken by a blogger that recently cost Gordon Brown’s closest aide his job. And today it was announced that the power of social media has toppled a previously-held policy of one of Britain’s leading retailers.
M&S had previously charged an extra £2 on bras with a cup size above DD, stating that the premium covered “the specialist work to ensure suitable level of support, innovation and technology that goes into the bras”, and saying that its customers were happy to pay the extra.
But one woman, fed up with paying extra for her underwear, decided she wasn’t quite as happy. Beckie Williams set up a Facebook group, and bought a single share in the company so that she could challenge the practice in person at the store’s AGM.
Having collected the support of over 14,000 members on the Busts 4 Justice group since last summer, Ms Williams managed to overturn the retailer’s previous position. Today she said that she was “really happy that… M&S have decided to abolish the tit-tax, and from now on will be operating a one-price-fits-all policy across their ranges”.
As has always been the case, it’s creeping into the public’s imagination and really getting under its skin that’s the best way to garner support for any campaign or cause. However, with the advent of a rising power in the form of democratic, social media, PRs need to remember that, maybe, newspapers – paid for or not – aren’t necessarily the way to get that support.
