6 Factors Preventing Accessibility to Printed Media It’s easy to overlook the barriers that still exist for many individuals when it comes to accessing printed media. Despite advances in technology and efforts towards inclusivity, there are still significant challenges that hinder access to printed materials for certain segments of the population. Let’s delve into some of these factors preventing accessibility and explore potential solutions.
The digital technology innovations have brought about significant changes that have revolutionised the media industry. Most of these changes were fueled by the massive growth of, and heavy reliance on the internet. Such technologies include mobile devices, social media, video and audio streaming services, and more.
As much as the digital technology is one of the main reasons for the print media big decline, there are other factors which continue to prevent the accessibility to the available print media. According to Mail& Guardian, the circulations of daily papers are down by 40% and print as a news source has fallen to 32% — down five percentage points from 2020.
List of 6 Factors which may prevent Accessibility to Print Media
- Lack of infrastructure may affect the transportation of material to communities.
- Affordability of printed media, most people in rural communities are unemployed and cannot afford to buy printed media regularly.
- Different levels of literacy (inability to read/inability to read English) of people which may influence their ability to read different types of printed media.
- Lack of printed media available in different home languages may restrict access to information.
- Geographical location/local availability of certain printed media may restrict access to information.
- Sponsors who only distribute in profitable areas may restrict access to information of some groups of society.