Niche is Now

Cameron Scheetz
cs175307@ohio.edu

In a culture where magazines like Cat Fancy and Model Airplane News have thousands of subscribers and cable provides us with networks like Disney XD and ESPN University, it should come as no surprise that Twitter has gained massive popularity. Twitter provides us with a live stream of news and entertainment catered specifically to our interests and needs. We choose what information we receive through the site and, because of this, Twitter is revolutionizing the news world.

Just like magazines and television before it, Twitter has realized the importance of the niche market and gives its users complete access to people, businesses , and other information sources of their choosing. As numerous thinkers and writers have pointed out, niche is now. What this movement towards the fringes means is that, more and more, media is listening to the people.

As Pamela Podger points out in her article, “The Limits of Control,” the average person now has a more active role in not only the news and information they personally receive, but also a more active role in the news and information that is created. She states “news consumers want more insight into how news organizations and individual journalists operate; they want a glimpse of the human newsgatherer, in all its foibles.” We no longer need mass media to tell us what is news; the public calls the shots.

New publications are popping up that tend to precise markets and more traditional mediums are diversifying to establish connections with more specific groups. Evidence of this is even found with Ohio University’s own The Post. The paper manages a general news Twitter account, but also handles accounts pertaining to city news, campus news, sports, culture, and sports.

Similarly, The Huffington Post is utilizing niches to its advantage; with over 15 different Twitter accounts, it is capitalizing on readers with specified interests. By appealing to particular demographics the web publication has wisely been able to increase the amount of daily traffic to its site, while still providing pertinent information to thousands of readers.

As journalists, this means that making news for the masses may no longer be an issue. The internet (and, even more specifically, Twitter) has connected us in a way like never before. We can produce content for a group of people with specific interests and use the internet’s individual-centric, personalized nature to find an audience that we never would have been able to before with traditional mass media.