It always used to be the case that media would do well in turbulent times. With political chaos, armed conflict and trade wars popping up wherever you look, you would think that people would be looking for measured, fact-based reporting and analysis and that the world’s media would be in robust health.

Instead, it seems we’re stopping looking. The media landscape is changing and fragmenting at what seems to be an ever-increasing rate.

The Reuters Institute Annual Digital News Report is always worth a read – there’s no better overview of the change in global media habits and the direction of travel we’re all heading.

So, dive in for the details, but some of the juicier pickings are:

- Engagement with ‘traditional’ media brands on TV, print and web platforms is declining, pretty rapidly. In the UK, for example, only over the last 12 years, news audiences for TV have from 79% to 48% and print from 59% to 12%, meaning (amongst many things) that the UK audience for news is predominantly online and mobile.

- Alongside that, we’re increasingly reliant on personalities to shape debate on news and politics. While many disparage ‘influencers’ as vapid purveyors of the ‘Hi Guys!’ vibe, the biggest influencer of them all, Joe Rogan, reached 22% of the sampled US audience in the week after Donald Trump’s election.

- Meanwhile, in not unrelated news, influencers are also widely seen as the most likely source of misinformation.

- News delivery is fragmented across a wider range of platforms – 36% getting their news from Facebook, but also YouTube (30%), Instagram and WhatsApp (both 19%), TikTok (16%) and X (12%).

- This broadening of platforms is accompanied by a growing dominance of a single format – video. Those consuming videos via social channels now make 67% of all markets. In some territories – India, Philippines, Thailand for example, video is the preferred route to consume news. That mirrors the speed of growth of TikTok, particularly in those self-same markets.

There’s lots more of this, but you get the direction of travel – the decline of the old news brands, the rise of new news and content creators who aren’t beholden to fact-checkers and sub-editors from that old world and who prefer short, sharp video to deliver. And that’s all before we get to generative AI and how that is affecting news, content and trust levels.

There’s a lot to take in. But one immediate issue is what to do about it all if you’re a company trying to get its corporate voice heard – and can no longer rely on a couple of phone calls to a friendly journalist.

On the media front, it’s more complicated: the old media brands are dealing with less search traffic and moving towards subscriber models. They are also laying off journalists. All those factors can make visibility for your announcements more difficult in those spaces.

At the same time, the notion of what constitutes a media brand is changing – podcasts, influencers, third-party platforms (like Wikipedia), specialist blogs, and new media brands that exist solely in social video (such as The News Movement) are reaching audiences in different ways. A fragmented news environment means a more fragmented approach – more titles hitting a wider variety of niche audiences in a range of media and formats. Understanding a more complex market and hitting those niches with the right messages, the right formats and the right terminology

And yet, it’s also simpler to be heard in your own right. The decline of dominant media voices means that others can be heard. Including your own. So, building strong digital channels gives companies the chance to be a visible as those who should be talking about them.

The means of production are in your hands. And the information you put on your channels is direct, without edits or interpretation by journalists, commentators, or influencers.

Your audiences switching to video? Create your own.

Your audiences watching those videos on social channels? Start your own.

Search engines switching to AI above news links? Build a website to deliver the high-quality information that answer the questions that AI and your audiences are asking.

In short, build your own digital voice. In a crowded market place, take the responsibility to speak more loudly for yourself, rather than wondering why no-one is doing it for you.

If you want support with your own digital presence – website, platform and content strategies and making sure you are heard – then contact digital@cardewgroup.com