"On the word side, you can see that this is going down. Newspapers and magazines have to reinvent themselves, as people are reading less, especially young people,” said Naisbitt.

The role of words is going down, while that of visuals is going up?

“Then again, you have all the visual images coming up. Today, architecture is the most important art form in the world. Political movements identify with a color. People wear bracelets that indicate certain affiliations.”

Things aren’t so bad though, according to Naisbitt. It seems he is pointing out a specific aspect of a widely accepted knowledge: that this is a time of transition for newspapers and their well-being will depend on their capacity to adapt.

"When we talk about the death of newspapers, we are talking about the death of a certain culture -- not of newspapers necessarily."

Naisbitt simply looks at a more specific factor in this adaptation. According to him, newspapers will have to adapt to the visual culture we’re in – which they have to a great extent through more colors, infographics, pictures, cartoons and more.

Perhaps that’s still not enough, and newspapers must make efforts to become even more eye-friendly. According to Naisbitt, this is perhaps one of the reasons why magazines now occupy a bigger share of the print mix.

Source: Poynter.org