Journalists in 2014. Where, oh where did our audience go?

Point: Signs of personal content perhaps shoving aside media content consumption are everywhere.

Journalism education has always taught storytellers to create content that a media audience finds compelling enough to devote part of their days consuming. But, what is the future of journalism education when technology increasingly is putting storytelling skills in the hands of everyone? Combine this trend with the advent of increasingly easy to use mobile personal content devices (like flexible screens with electronic 'ink'), and we begin to see what might occur. Will content produced by media companies – even when published via emerging media platforms – begin to lose mind- and time-share among an audience that can get – and create – its news and information in a much more personal manner?

Consider the following:

“More that two-thirds of user time on AOL is spent creating and sharing personal content – email, instant messaging, sharing photos, music mixes, etc. And this is increasing versus time spent with our media content.” Paraphrased from an AOL executive.

The Internet has created a new medium of digital storytelling, called Photoshopping. Sites such as Fark.com, Worth1000.com, and BT3a have several million monthly visitors voting on the 100s of submitted altered photos and illustrations that fit story telling themes.

Nokia is piloting LifeBlog, a personal journaling tool that allows you to easily capture any moment of your day with digital pictures and notes, with this content automatically uploaded to your Web journal for instant ‘publishing’ and sharing.