History of Media Monitoring:
History of Media Monitoring: The history of media monitoring dates back to the time even when public relations was not practiced as a profession. While there is no recorded incidence of how and when the media monitoring came into existence, it is believed that as far back as 1800s the news clips (media monitoring was known as “clipping service” then) were monetized commercially. Each news clip was sold at between 5 to 10 times the costs of the newspaper. The patrons were all the rich and famous, the page 3 variety as we know them now.
Times have changed and the service description has changed from clipping service to news tracking and now to media monitoring. Media monitoring services are now used more as an intelligence tool and to gauge the perception, media is creating related to the relevant industry. In the recent past, companies have realized the importance of managing image more than ever. Hence the need to effectively monitor the image through professionally managed media monitoring agencies.
World over Corporate and PR agencies rely on specialized agencies for media monitoring and analysis. With the explosion of social media in the last few years, the monitoring universe has seen a dramatic change. In India, social media has yet to gain the same prominence, and the focus is still mainly on the print media. Incidentally India is amongst the few regions in the world where the print media holds dominance and the readership still shows a healthy growth.
The media monitoring delivery has evolved over the time from hard copies to digitized versions. It has become more organized to suit the taste and sense, apart from the real need, of the CXOs and Communication professionals. In the age of information overload, media monitoring has changed from gathering all news to only relevant news.
