Read a little, read a little, OK next article!
Whenever I am assigned to read an article on the World Wide Web, not only do I not necessarily want to read it, but when I am finished I have probably skipped over half the words within the article. Why is “scanning” over text the typical trend in today’s Internet users.
The answer is simply that Web users do not read “word for word” online. The compilation of different varieties of material including color, pictures, sound and video, as well with text, can alter the attention of the user causing him or her to scan and lose interest within the reading.
Mark Dykeman stated that “There’s no doubt that the way we read Web pages, and our online content preferences, have a major impact on what we read, how long we read, and how attentively we read when online.”
Reading drastically has to adapt to the advances in technologies. Since books are being readily available online through the sorts of e-books, as well as the development of “footnotes“, online users are reading more than ever, but the way the text is being presented on a computer screen has produced “scanning”, ultimately leading to a decrease in quality of reading.
Because the Internet is the gateway to access information, more and more users are reading online. Dykeman also said that more and more material like magazines and journals are being generated online.
Change in mediums and medium changes
“The introduction of interactive elements into all media, offering television viewers in particular greater control and selectivity in their news and information consumption habits, thereby redefining the medium itself,” said Philip S. Balboni. Because information can be found with a click here and there, people have become accustomed to consistently updated material, and that’s what they want.
Blogging allows the audience to give feedback and corrections on news stories, and work with a more informal style, as journalists are basically information gatherers; they get information, process and present it.
“Technology – even in small amounts – is helping communities overcome convention and tradition to take leaps forward,” said World Bank/Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Journalists have to learn to adapt and apply some of these blogging characteristics into their worlds, and at the same time still continue to please their audience.
Other media outlets like television and radio stations are taking advantage of the Web, and some are not. Some television and radio stations have put up Websites and often, these stations work together to promote one another.
Traditional media learned the availability of and frequently updated and personalized news on Websites is what people were captured by.
The single most important thing that traditional media should do to keep audiences and gain new ones is to continue to present good and accurate news in the print edition, as well as keeping a Website maintained and updated, and keying in on important issues affecting its general audience.
Give me what I want NOW!!!!
There will never be a general finishing point in the capabilities and style of online journalism. It seems that newspaper companies with their online editions, and media are paving a new road down the path of journalism, leaving print in behind.
With today’s younger generation adapting at a high rate to the technological advances in computers and the Internet, it comes with no surprise that they would consider online versions to receive the news than print.
Online editions to get the news include a great example from the Chico Enterprise Record. Their new “E-edition” is one of many new ways that the newspaper companies are trying to create to keep up with the fast-growing installments of the Internet and media sources.
From USC Annenberg’s “Online Journalism Review”, online journalism has seen the control of the medium shift back and forth between owners and end-users through widely accepted and used ways. Users have only seen a handful of techniques of online editions, but the rise of media forming new styles and looks for their pages are increasing at a moderate pace compared to the advancements of technology.
Internet has allowed the media to add another component to their business’ objective to get the job done, and not many job categories or titles could have been more helped than journalism.
More than 10 years ago, John V. Pavlik from Columbia Journalism Review, provided a terrific example:
Imagine a library that carries the equivalent of 1,600 daily newspapers from all over the globe. Now stop imagining. It’s here: the Internet provides more news content than that every day, most of it free.
It provides a rational explanation to the reason of why online journalism has launched the way it has and at the speed it has, forcing new methods to be considered.
Online journalism is being more considered than print because of the “Now” factor in satisfying people’s desires of “I want it now! I want the news now!” And, people can be satisfied.
What is your alias?
An online community is a group of people who communicate through the Internet. It is the opportunity one gets to reveal a second identity through this online world, and has sort of this “second family” within this technological environment.
An online community is different than that of the physical environment. Anybody can be someone in the physical world, but online, that person could be living a totally different lifestyle via online communities. The people within these communities have relationships with one another and take care of each other just like what were to happen in the physical aspect.
“I’m looking at new registrations, page views, RSS subscriptions, incoming links, thread volumes, post/thread tone, blog comment traffic compared to posts …Visitors can now interact with each other and with Cadence in a more conversational way, sharing and learning from the collective participation….. We feel confident that our incorporation of ‘New Social Media’ into the corporate site is accomplishing our business objectives both in terms of metrics and community interaction,” said Tom Diederich, online community expert with Cadence Design Systems.
Sites like Facebook and MySpace are not considered online communities. Online communities provide members their chance of being someone they want to be, while still living their real, day-to-day, 9-5 job consisting kind of lifestyle.
Online communities provide relationships between individuals, establishing trust within that specific community. They decide how new information will spread, and work on interrelationships throughout their community.
It is the “family away from the family”, you could say; your alias. It is the place where you can go to find other people of very similar interest, become friends if accepted without ever having to give your real identity.
