How three big media trends affect the PR industry

And that’s a good thing—for the most part.

“Our analysis suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives,” Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, said in a press release. “But it remains unclear who will benefit economically from this growing appetite for news.”

Problem is the tech companies that make these platforms are profiting from the ad sales. For instance, five technology companies accounted for 68 percent of all online ad revenue in 2011, the report said. Pew questioned whether these big tech companies will give a boost to legacy media brands, even tossing out the idea that Facebook could one day buy The Washington Post.

[Check out the entire report.]

Pew identified several more major trends affecting the media world, nearly all of which will have an impact on the public relations industry. Here are three examples:

Social media is driving news readership, to an extent