The Big Issue

Have you seen the old man

In the closed-down market

Kicking up the paper,

With his worn out shoes?

In his eyes you see no pride

And held loosely at his side,

Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news...

As the garments flew over my head and covered the department store's floors, I felt like a passenger on the ill-fated Titanic, with people frantically grabbing whatever tickled their fancy, adding yet another acquisition in the Christmas sales.

Constantly broadcasted on TV, radio, and multimedia channels across the UK, journalists braved the big freeze that hit the British Isles - the worst in decades - and witnessed the stampede on the stores by 14 million shoppers who defied all recession woes.

On Christmas Eve, I decided to fulfil my spiritual needs and attend midnight mass at St Martin-in-the-Fields. I queued for nearly an hour in the freezing cold. Another line forming in front of an adjacent building caught my eye. During the homily, I learned that they were London's invisible people - the persons we do not notice, or rather refuse to see; they were the homeless.

Eighteen years on from the launch, The Big Issue is still offering a vital lifeline for homeless individuals. It is among the UK's leading street newspaper in circulation and listed as the third favourite of young British people.

In the last ten years, the newspaper industry has been facing a nightmare scenario. The big issue is that the newspaper business has realised that what happens is not under its control. People sitting in boardrooms thought they could decide what people want, yet what they are offering does not reflect that. It may be the best for the people, but if they do not want it, there is no point in providing it. Therefore, this decade witnessed the migration from newspapers to free online content. The rush to join the digital revolution has indirectly jeopardised newspapers' circulation.

The big question is - has news become a free commodity? Rupert Murdoch does not think so, as he wants to start charging for News Corporation's online content. Will we be prepared to pay? That is a gamble one of the five biggest media conglomerates in the world is willing to take. Whether newspapers will become free of charge, as Alexsander Lebedev owner of the London Evening Standard recently did, by doubling the distribution to 600,000 and attempting to recover the loss circulation revenue by increased advertising; or not, like rival quality newspapers The Guardian, other strategies of survival need to suffice - and fast.

There are two possible scenarios then. The first is that all the advertising would have to migrate from newspapers to the internet at the same premium levels, while the second implies that one has to be able to charge for it. Consequently, if the industry does not find a solution, these great quality newspapers, which have become a bastion of democracy, might crumble and simply disappear.

The newspaper industry, like any other media industry, has no idea exactly what its economic model will be in twenty years' time because of the digital disruption that has occurred to it, and the same can be said about broadcasting, publishing, the games industry, and movies. The combination of the digital disruption (the cause) with the credit crunch (the catalyst) is defeating all the old models of the media.

The power lies in interactivity and that is why this shift from the push to the pull factor needs considerable thought before it is embraced. We surely have to keep up with the technological advances but we also have to reflect the changes occurring. Spoilt for choice, we are downloading massive amounts of data our forefathers could have only dreamed of.

This can be viewed as a positive thing, but does that mean we are better off? We just have to make sure that where it is restricting the real opportunities for people to develop a career, a living, or a profession, the damage is not going to ultimately have an impact on the quality of music, films, movies, TV programmes, radio, and news we consume.

Rosemarie Dorekens is a fourth year B. Communications (Hons) student. She won the Harold Scorey Scholarship in broadcast journalism and has just completed a work placement with BBC, London, in December 2009.