Traditional and Digital Media in Transition: Communication Education as the Key to the Future
From the perspective of journalist Mario P. Székely, academic training remains essential, especially for those seeking to work in traditional media such as radio, film, and television.
At a historical moment marked by an overabundance of information, the rise of social media, and the constant transformation of media, studying communication has become one of the most relevant academic paths for understanding and narrating today’s world. This is the view of journalist and analyst Mario P. Székely, who recently visited Tecnológico de Monterrey’s San Luis Potosí campus to encourage students to enroll in its new Communication program.
He argued that society now exists within an ecosystem of stories, news, and content that circulate primarily through mobile phones. Everyday life offers ample evidence of the importance of this discipline: millions of people consume information through their devices, where stories about politics, culture, sports, and daily life unfold. Within this digital environment, new public figures have also emerged, such as content creators and so-called influencers, who capture the attention of thousands—or even millions—of followers.
In this context, a fundamental question arises: who creates these stories, and according to what criteria? Studying communication, he notes, makes it possible to understand how messages circulating in society are produced, how facts are verified in the case of news, and how a certain level of journalistic rigor can be ensured in the information reaching audiences.
From his perspective, academic training remains key, particularly for those who aspire to work in traditional media such as radio, film, television, or streaming platforms. Although formats have evolved, these media continue to require narrative structures, scriptwriting techniques, knowledge of genres, and an understanding of consumption trends.
Learning how to write a script, understanding the work of actors, analyzing narrative formats, and studying audiovisual movements are skills developed within an academic setting. Such training, he argues, allows stories to achieve greater impact and clarity for audiences.
However, communication is not limited to transmitting messages; it also involves understanding others. One of the discipline’s greatest strengths is its ability to uncover the stories of others and validate their experiences. This exercise, he asserts, contributes to building a more humane and just society.
For this reason, many universities incorporate subjects related to humanism, history, music, narrative, and the analysis of film and television. Together, these disciplines help shape communicators capable of telling stories with depth and sensitivity.
Within this broader landscape, journalism faces one of its greatest challenges. Both universities and traditional media, he suggests, are currently undergoing a period of transition, as audiences have radically changed the way they consume news.
Unlike past decades, when many people would spend half an hour watching a scheduled television newscast, information today is consumed in fragmented ways. News is heard while driving, skimmed on public transport, or checked on a phone while multitasking.
In light of these shifting habits, the challenge for both educational institutions and media organizations is to train journalists capable of adapting to new languages and formats. The task is not only to deliver information, but also to find models that reconnect citizens with professional journalism.
He warns that in recent years, some governments have cast doubt on the role of journalism, contributing to growing distrust toward traditional media. This trend is compounded by the dynamics of social media, where individuals often choose to follow those who share their views and offer interpretations aligned with their own beliefs.
Such a scenario, he cautions, can lead to a less critical society, where information circulates without scrutiny and partial versions of events prevail. For this reason, he insists that professional journalism remains indispensable, as its function is to investigate, contrast perspectives, and present multiple viewpoints so that people can make informed decisions.
He further suggests that journalism schools should engage in dialogue with other academic disciplines. Professionals in fields such as medicine, architecture, or accounting can contribute to journalistic work—either as subject-matter experts helping to disseminate knowledge or as citizens who recognize the value of verified information.
The closure of print newspapers and the migration of many outlets to digital platforms have also generated uncertainty about journalism’s future. Nevertheless, he believes the profession will not disappear, even if it undergoes profound transformation.
In his view, there will always be a need to tell what is happening. In the most extreme case, anyone who witnesses a significant event and records it on a phone can momentarily become a narrator of reality. Yet capturing an image is only the first step; interpreting that event and explaining its context requires a broader journalistic effort.
Questions such as what happened, how, where, why, and for what purpose remain fundamental to understanding any event. These principles, he notes, have been at the core of journalism since its origins and continue to be essential in the digital age.
Another major challenge is social polarization. Discourses that discredit journalism have found fertile ground in a society accustomed to consuming information through social media, where ideological affinity often takes precedence over fact-checking.
The issue is not the existence of diverse voices or differing interpretations of reality. What is concerning, he explains, is the dismissal of professional media that operate according to journalistic standards.
The journalist, he recalls, plays a specific role in society: to ask questions, investigate, and represent the public interest in relation to governments, corporations, athletes, or public figures. This work enables citizens to better understand what is happening around them.
However, when audiences stop consuming journalistic content or supporting media organizations, an immediate economic effect follows. Audiences decline, advertisers withdraw, revenues fall, and media outlets enter crisis. As a result, journalists are laid off and some news projects disappear.
Despite this complex landscape, he maintains an optimistic outlook, arguing that the transformation of media also opens opportunities to create new informational platforms, both digital and traditional.
Future generations of journalists will need to imagine and build these new spaces. They may do so online, through audiovisual formats, podcasts, or even independent projects emerging from communities themselves.
Ultimately, he concludes, what matters is that journalism continues to exist, because society will always need to understand what is happening around it. Amid the noise of information and the proliferation of voices on social media, the challenge for communicators will be to demonstrate why their work remains essential to democratic life.
Source: El Sol de San Luis
Author: Patricia Calvillo
Picture: Mario P. Székely