Mainstream News Online

Online Journalism: Modeling the First Generation of News Media on the WWW

ONLINE JOURNALISMS

Internet affected the way journalism is done and created its own form of online journalism. Professional journalists were stressed about the immediate nature of the Internet and didn’t feel they had enough time to learn how to use it.

Online news sites can be “open” or “closed” models. “Open” meaning that the audience is free to interact with the site by leaving comments, “closed” meaning that the audience can still participate but in an edited way.

Closed Participatory Communication

Collaboration on Editorial Content

Collaboration on Public Content

Open Participatory Communication

-Mainstream News sites

The most widespread form of news media production online. It includes editorial content and minimal, moderated participation (CNN, BBC, MSNBC).

-Index and Category sites

Attributed to search engines, market research firms or agencies, and sometimes individuals.

They offer links to existing news sites and don’t include much editorial content of their own, but sometimes include areas for conversation exchanges (Drudge Report and blogs which are somewhere between index and comment sites).

-Meta and Comment sites

Sites about news media and media issues in general. Contains editorial content that discusses other content found on the Web (journalism about journalism/meta-journalism). Allows journalists to be self-critical and more professional.

-Share and Discussion sites

Journalism online uses people’s need to connect with other people by facilitating platforms for the exchange of ideas and stories. (Slashdot, Indymedia, group blogs that discuss experiences on the Internet).

CHARACTERISTICS

-Hypertextuality

People saw it as only way to link out, but is also a way to link internally and few sites even use it and if they do, only link internally. Problems include ownership and copyright issues.

-Multimediality

Just because the ability for multimedia exists, it should have a purpose.

-Interactivity

Most sites only have navigation as their interactivity. There are three forms of interactivity on a news site. Functional, which are mail, bulletin boards, and discussion lists. Adaptive, which are chat rooms and the ability to customize the site. Perceived, which is when a user doesn’t actually use all of the interactive functions, but knows they exist.

Interactivity allows for accountability by allowing feedback and tips from users.

ADDED VALUE

There are two approaches of thought when thinking about the added value the Internet brings to existing news organizations.

1. Utopian – what the Internet brings is generally considered as promising a better world for all.
2. Pragmatic and pessimistic – there is no added value. People in this thought are referred to as “neutral rational realists.”
   

More training needs to be completed by journalists such as writing for the Web.
News sites can offer more information without time or space constraints that their counterparts deal with.

Open forms of communication, connections to people and content all over the Web.

Open discussion changing the definition of citizenship from the broadly informed citizen to monitorial citizen who demands information that is of high content and on their own time.
Archival capacity.

NEW STRATEGIES

-Annotative Reporting

A model based on hyperlinks creating an active rather than passive audience.

Even though the line between journalist and non-journalist is breaking down, people will still need professionals to guide them through certain things.

-Open Source Journalism

Harnessing the capacity of the Internet by utilizing the users as fact checkers and editors before running a story. This allows for expertise from people that you don’t or wouldn’t know in person.

-Hyperadaptive News Sites

Convergence of particular hypertext, multimedia, and interactivity. This means that eventually these three strategies will blend together.

DISCUSSION

Online journalism might change what is perceived as being journalism.

The open source format creates potential for user-generated content formed by the masses instead of one or two professionals (Wikipedia).

This participatory format democratizes journalism.

Sites should allow users to rate content and suggest or even upload content. The home page could adapt itself based on the users interests (in an Amazon type way) empowering its online users.



Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over

The question is not whether blogs are journalism, but whether bloggers are journalists.

The shift to participatory journalism means that professional journalism is no longer sovereign. People can express their opinions without having to hope that they are published in the editorial section of the paper.

Sources are now turning to blogs to have their voices heard without mediation from journalists. Such as the Mavericks' coach example turning to his blog and rarely speaking to the press. But journalists can quote from personal blogs and even Twitter feeds such as this story about the UK sensation Susan Boyle (if you haven't seen this video yet, take a minute to watch it). The whole story is based on tweets sent between Demi Moore and husband Ashton Kutcher.

Not sovereign

Declining sovereignty does not have to mean declining influence or reputation.

Being unbias has actually hurt journalists.

"This was the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, 'objectivity' makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message. It produces a rigid orthodoxy, excluding voices beyond the narrowly conventional." Geneva Overholser

"The paper doesn't have a voice"

Newspapers do not have a voice whereas blogs do. This builds a sense of bonding with blogs more than papers. Also, the availability of blogs throughout the day whereas newspapers only come in the morning typically.

The cartoon dialogue

Reducing the question or issue to bloggers vs. journalists is silly. The two are actually mutually beneficial to each other. The question should be about blogging's potential in journalism.

Departure points

1.) Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one, and blogging means practically anyone can own one. That is the Number One reason why weblogs matter. It is the broadest and deepest of all factors making this conference urgent.

2.) Instead of starting with “do blogs have credibility?” or “should blogging obey journalism ethics?” we should begin in a broader territory, which is trust. Trust as it is generated in different settings, online and off, in both blogging and in journalism— or in life.

3.) Look around: blogging partakes of a resurgent spirit of amateurism now showing in many fields earlier colonized by professionals. Why would journalism be immune?

4.) If news as lecture could yield to news as conversation, as some have recommended, it might transform the credibility puzzle because it would feed good information to journalists about the trusters and what they do and do not put their trust in.

5.) Among bloggers there is the type “stand alone journalist,” and this is why among journalists there now stands the type: blogger.

Conclusion

Bloggers strengths: first person accounts are easier to connect to and there is a large number of them.

Bloggers weaknesses: the lack of shape, structure, and meaning. Professional journalism provides meaning for a story through structure.




Questions

1. What are you opinions regarding blogging as changing civic engagement?

2. Where do you see the convergence going in regards to mainstream media? How will it change?

3. Rosen mentions that mainstream news have built up respect and trust over long periods of time so that when you see something in the New York Times, you are likely to take their word for it. Blogs in contrast need to build trust from the ground up. Do you think given the lack of trust in news media (the 2004 survey stated that only 38% of people thought that the news held no bias) that even mainstream news sites should be rebuilding their brand and audience trust by focusing more on users and allowing for more participation?

4. Do you think that convergence of the strategies in the first article, annotative reporting, open source journalism, and hyperadaptive news sites has already happened? How so?

Here is an interesting blog covering the unification of print and online news media.