Online: a ‘new’ journalism, content and the rule of the search engine

Henderson Report

Today Mark Henderson presented a seminar on online journalism and in particular the effects of the internet on journalism, journalists and the media.

Henderson explained that the media environment is changing with the convergence of new and old media which combines the use different media forms and creates an environment where they can be used simultaneously. This convergence media covers many platforms including audio, visual, print, web production, photography, filming and graphics.

He went on to give examples of this convergence of traditional and new media, such as the ‘living story’ of Wikipedia’s coverage of the Swine Flu outbreak and the use of social networking sites like ‘Twitter’ for instantaneous news delivery.

Founder of Google news, Krishna Bharat, coined the term ‘living story’ when referring to the growing and changing of the story of Swine Flu on Wikipedia as the disease developed, grew and changed itself.

Henderson refers to ‘Twitter’ as an example of media convergence as it provides an outlet for breaking news twenty four hours a day and through the ability to attach web links to video, audio or other footage it has the potential to provide extra support and information for readers.

Henderson discussed the question of whether this media convergence will lead to the ‘death’ of the more traditional forms of media such as newspapers, however according to Tapsall “far from killing them, new technologies actually helped to save the newspapers and made them more profitable.”

While there are questions about the death of traditional media forms, Henderson also pointed out the fears for the death of journalism itself, stating “when you can go online and access what you want, when you want it, why would we cling to these ‘old’ forms of news?”

These are valid claims, as Richard Roth states “Digital put the audience in control.”

To conclude the seminar, Henderson left the audience with the question of whether the convergence of new technology and traditional media forms will result in journalism be improved by better access to information for the general public and therefore a better level of understanding of news events, or just the ‘same old.’’”