A Situational Analysis on National Geographic - report

1. NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
A Situational Analysis on an International
Media Organization
Group Members:
Aditi Verma 0302985
Andrew Jaden 0304490
Eleanor-Jacinta 0304420
Hannah Hanif 0304878
Venice Min 0304310
Aiman Putra 1003F78265
Introduction to Mass Communication
Assignment Two, Semester One
Foundation in Communication, (July 2011)
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2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
S. No Topic Pages
01 Introduction to National Geographic 03
02 Background & Evolution of NGS 04-07
03 What Happened and Why? 8-10
04 Our Interpretation 11-12
05 The Conclusion 13
06 References 14
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3. Introduction
With a historical mission “to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the
conservation of the world’s cultural, historical, and natural resources,” the National Geographic
Society (NGS) aims to inspire people to ‘care about their planet’, as quoted by Mr. John M. Fahey,
Jr., President and CEO of the NGS since March 1998. Being one of the largest, non-profit scientific
and educational institutions in the world, the National Geographic Society’s interests comprise of
geography, archaeology, natural science along with the promotion of environmental and historical
conservation as well as the study of world culture and history. NGS indeed covers a variety of
subjects in different arenas – from amazing photographs to mind-boggling documentaries, they have
it all – having twenty-three members Board of Trustees comprising of groups of distinguished
educators, leading business executives, former governmental officials, and conservationists as its
governors, and thus succeeds in achieving a high audience for the National Geographic Channel as
well as a large readership and circulation for the National Geographic Magazine.
Thus, the following pages attempt to throw some light on how this quite prominent media organization
has evolved over the years – becoming what it is today – as well as how it has somewhat influenced
the society at large and contributed to the world.
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4. Background & Evolution
The National Geographic Society was founded in January 13, 1888 in Washington, D.C., by a
group of eminent citizens who wished to promote geographic research as well as the popular
distribution of the results of such research. The charter members of the Society consisted of
Alexander Graham Bell; Bell's father-in-law, lawyer Gardiner Greene Hubbard; explorers John
Wesley Powell and A. W. Greeley; and scholar George Kennan, uncle of future ambassador to the
Soviet Union George F. Kennan. Hubbard, being one of Bell's early financial backers, was elected
to serve as the Society's first president.
The NGS began with publishing magazines and its first issue titled ‘National Geographic’ appeared
in October and was sent to 200 charter members. It was published occasionally until monthly
publication began in January 1896. However, the early magazine’s articles were written in a dry,
academic style and bore titles such as "Geographic Methods in Geologic Investigation" and "The
Classification of Geographic Forms by Genesis," with no illustrations; thus the limited circulation –
with less than 1,000 subscribers and negligible newsstand sales.
After the death of Hubbard in 1897, Alexander Graham Bell took the helm, finding the National
Geographic Society in a precarious financial state, largely because its magazine had failed to
provide a strong revenue base. Thus, to improve the condition, he decided that a change in
editorial policy was needed that would make it a popular scientific magazine rather than a scholarly
journal, and a full-time editor was required as well to manifest the changes he sought. Finally, in
1899, Gilbert H. Grosvenor accepted the editorship offer from Bell.
According to Poole (2004), Grosvenor proved to be the catalyst behind the immensely successful
popularization of the magazine. He mandated some stylistic changes for the magazine, including
eliminating academic jargon, keeping sentences short and punchy, replacing scholarly formality
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5. and detachment with engaging first-person narrative, and most significantly, introducing
photographs, gaining 11,000 regular subscribers by 1906. He then ran National Geographic's first
colour photos in 1910 and the magazine remains a pioneer in the journalistic use of photography
till date.
In 1920, the entire National Geographic Society and its expanding operations finally became
Gilbert Grosvenor's responsibility when he succeeded John Pillsbury as president, though he
remained editor of the magazine, which continued the readable, relatively upbeat style that he had
created.
In these early years, the Society also began its sponsorship of high-profile exploratory,
archaeological, and naturalistic expeditions, for example – It contributed $1,000 to the Arctic
expedition led by Commander Robert E. Peary in 1906 who then became the first documented
explorer to reach the North Pole in 1909.
Grosvenor continued its sponsorship of extraordinary expeditions as president of the NGS, and in
1939 the Society and the Smithsonian Institution co-sponsored an expedition to southern Mexico
during which archaeologist Matthew Sterling uncovered a Mayan stela, an inscribed tablet, which
was the oldest known human artefact from the New World, as stated by Poole (2004).
National Geographic reached a mass readership with a circulation of 500,000 at the end of World
War I, and also launched a weekly publication designed for classroom use, Geographic School
Bulletins, in 1922, after receiving a request for geographical information from the National
Education Association.
During World War II, the Society opened its photographic and cartographic archives to the U.S.
military that provided intelligence about infrastructure in enemy-held territory and also helped
unveil camouflage when compared with the military's own reconnaissance photographs.
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6. After the war, the Society turned part of its attention to the outer space, co-sponsoring with the
California Institute of Technology the ambitious Sky Survey, which would produce the Sky Atlas,
the first comprehensive photographic map of the heavens.
After bringing the NGS to a whole new level, Gilbert Grosvenor retired in 1954, becoming
chairman of the Society and was succeeded in his positions by John Oliver La Gorce, who was in
turn succeeded by Grosvenor's son, Melville Bell Grosvenor, later.
As editor of National Geographic, Melville Bell Grosvenor expanded the magazine's use of colour
photography, and as CEO of the National Geographic Society, he expanded the Society's book
publishing operations and also led it into the increasingly universal medium of television. Then, in
1958, Grosvenor and long-time staffer Luis Marden decided to produce the Society's own
television programs, and three years later, the Society formed its documentary film department.
The first Society-produced television special, "Americans on Everest," aired on CBS in 1965.
In 1970, Gilbert M. Grosvenor, Melville's son, assumed the leadership position at National
Geographic, after the death of his Grandfather and retirement of his father, and by 1980 National
Geographic boasted 10.7 million subscribers and a circulation of well over 30 million (National
Geographic Online, official website).
Despite the slowdowns in the economy and increased competition from other popular science
magazines during 1980s, the Society's television operations received a boost in 1985 when it
signed an agreement with cable station WTBS to produce a weekly documentary series, National
Geographic Explorer.
By the mid-1990s, the Society had sold more than four million home videos. Its ‘for-profit
subsidiary’, National Geographic Ventures, was producing educational materials in a variety of
formats, including a Disney Channel television program called Really Wild Animals. The group was
planning to air the National Geographic Channel on cable and satellite in cooperation with NBC. It
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7. also ran the Society's web site and online store, and had established theatres and exhibits at
national parks.
Even though the flagship's sister publication, National Geographic Traveller, introduced in 1984,
had been sold at newsstands for seven years, the NGS took another step forward by
placing National Geographic on newsstands in 1998, breaking a century of its "members only"
tradition. After this, the National Geographic Adventure debuted in April 1999 initially as a
quarterly, but expected to be produced monthly by 2001.
So, as the National Geographic Society entered the 21st century, it boasted of three magazines,
programs for television and home video, an expanding web site, and two freestanding retail stores
in Washington, D.C., along with a new cable, a new magazine and international television
channels under development. The Society was also seeking partners to capitalize upon
the National Geographic brand name via toys, software, and other consumer goods. In January
2001, the National Geographic Society added stewardship of the planet to its list of purposes and
later in the year added a new grant-making body, National Geographic Conservation Trust, to
support conservation activities around the world.
In a different realm, the National Geographic Channel also launched in January 2001 to about ten
million U.S. homes, and received positive response.
As quoted by Poole (2004), the society's mix of new media opened the door for the organization,
and advertisers, to get their messages across in a variety of Geographic formats, and the wholly
owned and taxable subsidiary National Geographic Ventures handled content distribution through
means ranging from home video and DVD to international television to digital archives.
Therefore, the NGS indeed came a long way since when it first started with a single low-circulation
magazine, to a major media organization spanning worldwide from a variety of mass readership
magazines, to its very own internationally acclaimed channel, to a huge website – all being vast
pools of knowledge.
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8. What Happened and Why?
As noted in the previous section, National Geographic’s first issue published in October 1988 was
more text orientated and articles are written in a dry, academic style, with no illustration. So, the
very first changes that were brought about to improve the magazine were initiated by Alexander
Graham Bell who took charge after the death of Gardiner Greene Hubbard in 1897, by making a
change in the editorial policy as well as getting a full-time editor. His desired improvements, as
seen in the previous section, were taken care of by Gilbert Grosvenor who became the catalyst
behind the popularization of the magazine bringing many changes to it.
Grosvenor revamped the magazine in various ways. National Geographic articles were made
readable without losing their educational value and photographs were then introduced into the
magazine as Grosvenor knew well about the impact photographs would have. Color photos came
into being soon enough and this move made National Geographic‘s circulation shoot up. This was
the first step towards the magazine becoming the pioneer in journalistic use of photography. It
also began the era of photojournalism where photographers began to find new content to be
published. Thus, these changes were driven by the economic factors – since NGS had been in a
precarious financial state – as well as by social factors since these were brought about to increase
the popularity of the magazine.
Currently, the CEO of the National Geographic Society, John Fahey, says that the mission
behind his organization is not necessarily driving circulation rates up but promoting geographic
knowledge and conservation of the planet’s cultural, historic and natural resources. (Wallace,
McCombs School 2007).
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9. Another major change in the National Geographic Society was when it moved on towards
television. This change was driven by economic and social factors yet again as there was a threat
of decrease in readership of the magazine since the Great Depression. So, in order to stop
National Geographic from going down, they signed an agreement with cable station WTBS to
produce a weekly documentary series known as National Geographic Explorer in 1981. It can also
be noted though, that despite the Great Depression influencing this change, technology also
played a major role as Gilbert Grosvenor focused more on emerging technologies like the
Television to increase popularity that would affect the Society’s long-term future.
Another technology-driven change for the NGS was in the 1990s, when the Society collaborated
with Lucasfilm and Apple Computer to come up with a multimedia packaged called “GTV”. “GTV”
was designed to be used in middle schools as it included interactive lessons about the U.S.
history. Thus, from the world of ‘print’, National Geographic had now moved to the era of
computers and television.
A huge step that became the mark of success for the NGS was the launch of its channel. National
Geographic Channel was first launched in September 1997 for UK, Europe and Australia. July
1998 for Asia and finally in January 12, 2001 in the United States as a joint venture with Fox Cable
Networks. However, audience awareness of National Geographic in United States as a network
still needed a lot of work. This was due to the astonishing answer of the audience when asked:
"When we ask viewers, 'Do you watch National Geographic?' they say, 'Oh sure, I watch it
all the time ... on Discovery,'" (Steve Schiffman Television Week 2003).
So, the Discovery Channel was one of the competitors for documentary shows during that time,
and this competition became the influencing factor behind the NGS putting in more and more effort
to improve the National Geographic Channel.
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10. Throughout 2003, National Geographic Television & Film’s programming areas had mixed results.
Large format IMAX films were successful endeavors while programing for children had just started
off the ground.
"People under 40 don't watch a lot of documentaries even if we enhance them with a lot of
other elements. The entertainment genre is a way to reach those people, still with Geographic
stories that are mission oriented." (Reference For Business Website n.d. ).
So, National Geographic had to generate new content by including elements that would attract the
younger generation without losing the educational value in it. This was also to grab the younger
generation’s attention and also create awareness about the missions that are done globally. These
new elements were also incorporated in the expanding website of the National Geographic. Once
again, the social factor – going hand in hand with the ‘present generation’ – became the driving
force behind these innovations.
On the other hand, by 2006, National Geographic magazine had already been printed in nearly 30
languages. Also, under licensing agreements, Geographic’s foreign publishing partners began
mixing more local interests articles with the American-produced content. Therefore, by doing so,
aspects transitioned from bringing the world to Americans to bringing the Americans to the world.
Thus, it can be concluded that the improvements brought about throughout in the NGS – all the
way from the print media to the broadcasting and web media – were all influenced by social,
economic and technological factors as well as to outdo its competitors.
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11. Our Interpretation
After much research concerning the National Geographic Society, we have been able to
understand its role in the mass media better than when National Geographic remained a simple
‘TV channel’ and nothing more. By analyzing news articles and assorted pieces of information
scattered all around the Internet, we have come to believe that National Geographic has
influenced the world through its embrace of times long past and the present, not to mention that is
and has yet to come – the future.
From what we can see in recent times, National Geographic embodies a wide range of
traits and ideals, from the old to the new. How so? For one, it embraces the beauty of civilizations
long past by and has helped to sponsor popular traveling exhibits such as the "King Tut" exhibit
featuring magnificent artefacts from the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh, which toured in several
American cities before ending its U.S. showing at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The Tut
exhibit is currently in Atlanta, while another National Geographic exhibit called ‘The Cultural
Treasures of Afghanistan’ opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in May 2008, before
travelling over the next eighteen months to places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York
City. And interestingly, they stopped photo journalism for the time being after Kodak stopped
producing Kodachrome film, in which some of National Geographic’s most memorable pictures
were captured.
How have they embraced modern society though? For starters, back in 2010, they
introduced the National Geographic Interactional Edition to the iPad, which allowed them to
connect with an entirely new generation – our generation. They have also thrown in their support
for the various fields of modern science – cryptozoology, anthropology and archaeology, to give
several examples. In fact, National Geographic’s CEO, John Fahey has stated that National
Geographic attempts to only take a position on matters supported by strong scientific support,
such as global warming, a topic that’s received significant coverage in the magazine (Wallace,
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12. 2007). The magazine also covered the Human Genome Project in 2007, which attempted to
determine the origins and path of human migration. Last but not least, the Society is very
supportive of geology and exploration worldwide, as evidenced by their two awards – the Hubbard
and Alexander Graham Bell medal, both given to distinguished contributors of exploration and
geology respectively, for example Matthew Henson (Solomon, 2001) and the duo of Roger
Tomlinson and Jack Dangermon (Braun, 2010).
National Geographic has also helped sponsor numerous research projects over the years,
with examples being the undersea exploration by Jacques-Yves Cousteau – who was the co-
creator of the aqualung, Xu Xing’s discovery of fossil dinosaurs in China with distinct feathers,
Spencer Wells’ Genographic Project, which was a multi-year genetic anthropology study that
aimed to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analysing DNA samples from
hundreds of thousands of people from around the world, although it met opposition from
indigenous tribes (Harmon, 2006) as well as Robert Ballard’s dual discoveries of the famed RMS
Titanic in 1985, not to mention the PT-109 boat commanded by U.S. President John F. Kennedy
during World War II (Chamberlain, 2002). National Geographic also happens to sponsor the
National Geographic Bee, which is an annual geographic contest for middle-school American
students, as well as an international geography competition every two years. The most recent one
was held back in July 15, 2009 at Mexico City, and boasted representatives from 15 national
teams. The team from Canada emerged as the winner, while teams representing the United States
and Poland obtained runner-up, 2nd runner-up being the position of the latter.
In conclusion, we can safely assume that as an organization, the National Geographic
Society has played a not-insignificant role in enriching the lives of people worldwide, not just by
spreading a love of science and exploration to all corners of the globe, but also by giving
researchers the chance to contribute to society by lending a subtle, but meaningful hand via
sponsorship, and finally also playing a role in nurturing the interest of budding geologists
worldwide.
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13. Conclusion
The preceding pages have attempted to shed some light on the National Geographic Society, of
how it evolved over the years, what changes and innovations enabled it to reach the position it
holds currently in society, and somewhat it’s impact on and contribution to the world by exploring
wide arenas like archaeology, natural science, world culture, history, geography and the
environment, etc.
So, one can definitely say that the NGS is living up to its motto to inspire people to care about the
planet.
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14. Reference List:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_geographic (Wikipedia)
2. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/image-
collection/#/history_of_photography/ (History of Photography website-National Geographic)
3. http://theadventureblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/national-geographic-comes-to-ipad.html
(Blog)
4. http://www.lb9.uscourts.gov/webcites/10documents/Spencer_NatGeo.pdf (Article)
5. http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/31/National-Geographic-Society.html
(Reference for Business Website)
6. http://www2.mccombs.utexas.edu/news/pressreleases/fahey07.asp (News story)
7. Poole, Robert M. (2004). Explorers House: National Geographic and the World it Made.
New York: Penguin (e-book)
8. www.nationalgeographic.com (Official website – National Geographic)
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