Mobile devices allow readers to access information without the limits of time and space, reducing the appeal of print media

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently reiterated the importance of the media. Speaking about how to promote the convergence of traditional and new media, Xi says the media should pay attention to both convergence and management, and ensure media convergence advances in the right direction.

Xi visited the offices of three mainstream media outlets, stressing the urgency and significance of embracing new media.

New media have expanded across China, with Jiemian and The Paper in Shanghai, Jiupai in Central China's Hubei province, and the Cover in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

They have increased their share in the market, too. The first impact of new media on the traditional media is the loss of readers, resulting in falling circulation. Consequently, advertisers have turned to new media and it is becoming increasingly difficult for publishers to survive, let alone make profits.

Moreover, readers' habits have changed in this age of new media. The old way of storytelling no longer appeals to readers and viewers. The younger generation favors mobile devices and entertaining ways of storytelling, forcing the traditional media to focus on visualization and participative reporting. Information technology devices allow readers to access information without the limits of time and space, further reducing the attractiveness of the print media.

The relationship between journalists and readers, too, has changed. User-generated content has become a vital part of news production, and citizen journalism is today an accepted fact. Editors are not the only gatekeepers for media outlets. In the age of information explosion, it's the users who decide what and when to read.

The traditional media have no choice but to change to survive. And traditional publishers have to gradually shift to new media to avoid becoming history.

According to a China Internet Network Information Center report issued in July, the number of smartphone users in the country is 620 million, which reflects the huge market for mobile reading. Therefore, the traditional media should adopt creative mobile strategies to meet people's fast-changing appetites. One way of doing so is to customize content for mobile devices.

As more and more traditional media outlets direct their attention to mobile apps, uploading content from print editions to the internet alone will not be enough to draw readers and to shift to new media. Publishers should pay more attention to reader experience. For example, they have to find out what kind of content is suitable for mobile devices and what sort of presentation provides the best visual experience. Publishers' mobile-device strategy will, to a large extent, determine the success of their shift to new media.

Publishers should also use a combination of new methods to present news, because readers and viewers today demand more and varied information. They need to adopt methods like visualization and virtual reality to effectively present an event. And to shift to new media, publishers have to build a team of journalists who can make full use of new technologies and know how to combine them with objective journalism.

Therefore, journalists need to radically change the way they approach news, which essentially means the traditional media have to change the way they tell a story and train their journalists in new media skills.

More importantly, the traditional media ought to make more effort to engage and interact with readers and viewers, who in turn can make greater contributions to the presentation of a story. User-generated content is a source that editors should pay more attention to, because citizen journalists have been responsible for breaking quite a bit of news. Interaction with readers and viewers is equally important as it can help editors focus more on what their target audience wants.

Tian Zhihui is professor of new media studies at the Communication University of China, Beijing. Zhao Fan is a master's student at the university. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.