News: Online vs Offline

The internet has been described as a “technology of freedom” (Sola Pool in Flew, 2005, p. 88), a place where freedom of expression is encouraged and therefore it is a flourishing ground for a diversity of sources that are rich in information (Flew, 2005, p. 88). Practically everyone that has access to the internet has the potential to be a publisher (Bruns, 2005), and therefore people are not just users of information and news, they are produsers, simultaneously using and producing content (Bruns, 2007). These capabilities are brought about by the collaborative and creative nature of Web 2.0 (Bruns, 2007), and I believe they have had a great affect on more traditional forms of information sources, such as newspapers.

Newspapers were once the most important form of mass media (Cunningham & Turner, 2006, p. 97), however with new media technologies such as the internet rapidly changing the media environment, I believe that this statement is no longer plausible. Research has shown that the readership base for newspapers continues to decline (Cunningham & Turner, 2006, p. 5), with this partly being a result of the increase in a diverse range of media outlets online that offer rich content and attract and cater to niche audiences (Cunningham & Turner, 2006, p. 321). An effect of the increasing amount of user-led news websites seems to be that the democratic process is changing, becoming more participatory in nature (Jenkins, 2007).

While I still consider traditional newspapers to be relevant in today’s media environment, I do not believe they are as important as they were in the past. The internet has allowed people to evolve from being passive users of newspapers (with the exception of being able to contribute to an editorial section) to being active users or produsers (Bruns, 2007) of online news. This has been facilitated by the emergence of many online independent media outlets such as Indymedia, which is a “network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth” (Independent Media Centre, 2008). Indymedia is just one example of an online news site that offers alternative views to traditional news and caters to niche audiences, with others being Slashdot, UQ News Online, and Wiki News to name a few.

Through my study of virtual cultures, I have noticed that the emergence of online news sources has allowed many more people to have a voice in regard to important issues, decreasing the importance of the traditional journalist. The internet facilitates participatory and citizen journalism, where "the intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires” (Bowman & Willis in Wikipedia, 2008). On the internet, people can form communities around a news site, maintaining and updating it within minutes of a change in news, which is impossible for newspaper publishers to do. Also, where there were once geographical boundaries in the collection of news due to newspapers’ tangible qualities, the internet allows a person to gather news from around the world instantly.

In the future, as technology advances and plays a larger part of our lives, I can see traditional newspapers becoming obsolete. However, I am sure that this transition will be met with much resistance, as newspapers are a part of our history. However, the capabilities of the internet allow many more people to participate in the production of news and therefore the democratic process , which I believe is important. I believe that people will always crave information, and the ways in which they access information will be forever changing. Whatever the future holds for news production, it seems that one thing is for sure: the future is user-led (Bruns, 2007).

References

Bruns, A. (2005). Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production. Chapter One: Introduction. Retrieved April 28, 2008, from http://snurb.info/files/Gatewatching-Introduction.pdf.

Bruns, A. (2007). The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from http://snurb.info/files/The%20Future%20Is%20User-Led%20(PerthDAC%202007).pdf.

Cunningham, S. and Turner, G. (2006). The Media and Communications in Australia. 2nd ed. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.

Flew, T. (2005). New media: An introduction. 2nd ed. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Independent Media Centre. (2008). About Indymedia. Retrieved April 28, 2008, from http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/about.shtml.

Jenkins, H. (2007). Henry Jenkins@Beyond Broadcast 2007. [Interview with Jenny Attiyeh of ThoughtCast]. Retrieved April 4, 2008, from http://thoughtcast.org/casts/beyond-broadcast-2007.

Wikipedia. (2008). Citizen Journalism. Retrieved April 28, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism.