Online Journalism

 Introduction to Online Journalism

Digital journalism also known as online journalism is a contemporary form of journalism where editorial content is distributed via the Internet as opposed to publishing via print or broadcast. Digital Journalism or Online journalism has democratized the flow of information that was previously controlled by traditional media including newspapers, magazines, radio, and television.

Blogs are also another digital journalism phenomenon capable of fresh information, ranging from personal sites to those with audiences of hundreds of thousands.

Impact of Digital Journalism on Readers

Digital journalism allows for connection and discussion at levels that print does not offer on its own.. Digital journalism represents a revolution of how news is consumed by society. Online sources are able to provide quick, efficient, and accurate reporting of breaking news in a matter of seconds, providing society with a synopsis of events as they occur. Throughout the development of the event, journalists are able to feed online sources the information keeping readers up-to-date in mere seconds. The speed in which a story can be posted can affect the accuracy of the reporting in a way that doesn’t usually happen in print journalism. Before the emergence of digital journalism the printing process took much more time, allowing for the discovery and correction of errors.

News consumers must become Web literate and use critical thinking to evaluate the credibility of sources. Because it is possible for anyone to write articles and post them on the Internet, the definition of journalism is changing. Because it is becoming increasingly simple for the average person to have an impact in the news world through tools like blogs and even comments on news stories on reputable news websites, it becomes increasingly difficult to sift through the massive amount of information coming in from the digital area of journalism.

There are great advantages with digital journalism and the new blogging evolution that people are becoming accustomed to, but there are disadvantages. For instance, people are used to what they already know and can’t always catch up quickly with the new technologies in the 21st century. The goals of print and digital journalism are the same, although different tools are needed to function. One major dispute regards the credibility of these online news websites.

Impact on Publishers

Newspapers rarely break news stories any more, with most websites reporting on breaking news before the cable news channels. Digital journalism allows for reports to start out vague and generalized, and progress to a better story. Newspapers and TV cable are at a disadvantage because they generally can only put together stories when an ample amount of detail and information are available. Often, newspapers have to wait for the next day, or even two days later if it is a late breaking story, before being able to publish it. Newspapers lose a lot of ground to their online counterparts as people are now able to find the news they want, when they want, without having to leave their homes or pay to receive the news.

Construction of Online Journalism

Studies into how users digest content on online journalism sites show that users consume the story in a completely different way to users of traditional journalism media. In the early stages of online journalism many sites where attached to news outlets who simply posted their print story or the script of the radio story onto the page. This proved to be ineffective as writing for the online world is vastly different from writing for the printed page. It is believed people read off the computer screen 30% slower then they read off paper. Also, people do not read carefully online, rather they scan. If they cannot quickly and easily find the information they are after they promptly leave the site. To complement this, online journalism developed its own style of story construction. Presenting the story in chunks allows the reader to quickly scan the story and single out the passages relevant to them.

Immediacy of Online Journalism

Immediacy has always been a fundamental element in online journalism. Print journalism allows story depth but often the story is not reported until the morning after. Online journalism provides the best arena for distributing news quickly.

Reference:

https://medium.com/@nrsatish29/impact-of-online-journalism-353f5fcf608f

https://www.thehindu.com/news/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=September&tpcc=THDGL&gclid=Cj0KCQiAmpyRBhC-ARIsABs2EAqu-E8Op2YObNZ7k_I3QAIBKL8pnQ7k7s8TbLs8LRlxQIJf9WoBdXEaAoQMEALw_wcB

https://thewire.in/