Our fingers move increasingly faster over keys of a computer and buttons on a mobile phone, than they do with pen and paper. Does this mean the end of writing personal messages and that soon everyone will be communicating through the internet? Is that not a scary enough thought in itself?
While many still shy away from the world of online, journalism is taking the online world by storm and journalists are logging onto the internet in their thousands to share news at the click of a button and easily connect with their audience. I have been reading the www.internet-manifesto.org which is a series of 17 declarations set out by German Journalists. The article supports the argument that journalism is advancing on the internet and claims that in order to better connect with the audience every advance in technology should be used, journalists should embrace the technology that is available rather than ignore it.
As more and more people are logging onto the internet and exploring the online world, the expectations for online journalism are greater. With a regular paper the reader would of paid a substantial sum of money to read it, whereas online there is so much content available that you will hold the reader’s attention for much less time. In order to compete with other journalists your technology needs to be of the highest standard, and you’re not only competing with journalists but also “citizen journalists” – anyone with a video/camera/blog who through the now hundreds of different avenues to publish their thoughts and photos (twitter, bloggers, youtube) are competing with the professionals for the transient audience.
While a web page with more technology such as pictures, videos and sound links would attract a bigger and more diverse audience than the bog-standard web page would ordinarily attract, not everyone has the technology available to support the larger content of the webpages. The more advanced a webpage gets, the less compatible it will be with every computer. On numerous occasions I have been asked to download Flash player or have been entirely disconnected from some web page because the computer I am using is to old or the connection too poor. Not everyone will have an internet connection either, many families in the UK still don’t have access to the internet, especially the older generation and in other countries such as Vietnam webpages are restricted.
Is it a good thing that journalism is moving into the online world? I think a magazine is something you cherish, a nice quiet hour curled up on the settee where you can flick through at your leisure or your morning newspaper, read over coffee. If you move too much towards the online world we lose the edited content in exchange for the vast amounts of user generated content out there. And where is the social aspect of sharing news, features over your breakfast/evening meal while you are sitting alone at your computer?
Around the world in 80 trays 