Ivan Pavlov was a Russian psychologist most famous for
classical conditioning. I’m sure you’ve heard of Pavlov and his
dogs, but for those of you that haven’t, here’s a little about how
he got dogs to salivate to the sound of a bell:
Pavlov was always on time and a meticulous, scheduled
man. He found that he worked best if his hours were planned
out and he generally lived each day like the one before. Also a
doctor, Pavlov was investigating something about the chemical
consistency of dog saliva after they ate certain foods.
When a dog is hungry, they see the food, salivate and eat the
food. So you would be sure that Pavlov was completely bewildered
when he started to bring the dogs their food and they
were already salivating. How did they know food was coming?
Well, the town bell struck, let’s say 6 p.m., and Pavlov knew it
was time to feed the dogs. So he walked to the barn and fed
them. And he did this over and over again because dogs need
to eat every day. And eventually, the dogs started to respond
to the sound of the bell, knowing that food was coming. Pavlov
conditioned his dogs to behave differently. This is why he was
so important, because it gives hope to people everywhere that
they can condition behavior modification in others.
It’s true, you can.
I started thinking about this experiment because I wanted to
know what made the newspaper business become so obsolete,
as compared to news online. And I realized it’s because we
have conditioned our behavior in that our gadgets bring us
instant reward. Don’t believe me? Is it a stretch?
When texting was new, I didn’t really use it, but then I made
the switch and I think it’s because I started responding to the
sound of a bell. I hear my little tune and I drop everything I am
doing, whether it’s sitting in class, operating a motor vehicle or
sleeping, and respond to the bell.
Hearing it means I have to read something and respond. My
behavior has been modified. So, I say to myself, this could be at
least part of the reason why the newspaper company for which
I work as a freelance writer, along with hundreds of other companies
in the news business, is filing for Chapter 11, or, gulp,
Chapter 13.
I blame websites for having “bells.”
Now, if you want to know something, you search for the
topic and within a few seconds, thousands of hits come up. If
you want to know something you don’t “New-York-Times it,”
you “Google it.” The world is different and we have conditioned
our culture appropriately.
And here is where newspapers die. When breaking news
happens, I know about it almost a day before it’s printed in the
paper. Imagine what it would have been like to find out about
9/11 in the next day’s paper-nearly 24 hours later! The point
is that important current events are not broken in the papers
anymore. And with the internet making this obsolete, people
are turning elsewhere to find out about what newspapers are
best used for, example town government-just visit their website!
Companies are left floundering and not knowing what to do,
their business model is failing, but it seems pretty obvious to a
soon-to-graduate journalism major-classical conditioning.
Get your customers to respond by altering their behavior. In an
era where brand names rule the world, this shouldn’t be too
hard. Apple went from nothing to something huge by altering
their public image and showing how desirable their product
was over the dozens of other options in mp3 players or laptop
computers. They made their business model work in a changing
world. News sites need to get paid and to help do that they
got to shut down other so-called news sites, the free ones- rise
up and diss any non-credible news source. It needs to be clear
what is and is not real reporting. As well, you’ve got to move
this audience from paper to touch-screen and monitor.
That doesn’t seem like it would be hard to do.
So when people start to see the NY Times logo online, they
can associate it with credible news they have got to have, and
pay for. And anyone not going to, for instance, this site is not
getting good information.
Ding! Behavior modified!
But, one other thing needs to happen first before this business
is saved. Papers must bring in the young, multi-talented journalists
out there who can envision a changing and evolving
business, and leave the single-minded editors of yesterday on
the cutting room floor.