Cyber Communication & Journalism (Lec-01) Introduction of Cyber Journalism In the last decade the world has witnessed a stupendous gr...
Cyber Communication & Journalism (Lec-01)
Introduction of Cyber Journalism
In the last decade the world has witnessed a stupendous growth of internet users due to the proliferation of cyber media. As of today, most of the leading newspapers and magazines have their online versions for more reachability, and this further enhances the brand of the respective media houses along with the business.
Cyber Media – Definition
Wiener used the term cybernetics, starting in 1948, to encompass a broad range of communications between humans, between humans and machines, and between machines themselves.
Within the scope of cybernetics he included the transmission of messages, especially those that exert control; the likelihood of information to degrade as time and distance intervene; and especially the function of feedback between humans and all the systems with which they have contact (Wiener,1954).
According to Mindy McAdams, cyber media is vast quantities of electronic information stored in incremental form, with the increments able to be combined easily by any user into sequences and sets that suit his or her needs, without boundaries related to subject matter, original authors, or print-packaging conventions.
Journalism is practiced online. Online journalism can include multimedia elements: text, images, graphics, audio, video, animation, broadcast radio- TV-film etc.
Reporting, writing and editing for cyber media is an art so as a science, where creative faculty has to submerge with the rational one. A proper style, along with the proportional amalgamation of traditional doctrine” the inverted pyramid” and the latest technique “search engine optimization” could take this media into zenith.
The trend is already bullish; the only acceleration and proliferation factors are proper style, tools and techniques.
NB: Cyber space is a domain characterized by the use of electronics and electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructure.
Online Journalist
A magic charm or spell, a new breed of journalist. They are mobile journalists equipped with notepads, cameras, recorders, cell phones and laptop computers so they can file community news stories for the Web at a moment’s notice.
- They don’t go to a newspaper office.
- Their deadlines are whenever they get their information.
- The concept was initiated at 3 of newspapers owned by the Gannett Corp.
- Reorganized its newsroom as “information center.”
- Breaking news on the Web is short, fast and frequent.
New Horizons
The term online is the term that has commonly come to mean “connected to the internet”. Online journalism handles news of all kinds in all formats to the same efficiency. Using online media, we can get access to the whole world in a few seconds and get in touch with the information whatever we seek for.
There are five unique areas where online journalism is different from its traditional counterpart “print”. The five areas are follows: - News Cycle- Updating Frequency- Packaging- Knowledge Links- News Vehicles
1. News cycle:
It is instant and grinding 24 hours a day.
2. Updating Frequency:
It involves constant updating. News stories can be updated any time.
3. Packaging:
Number of stories can be uploaded simultaneously. Texts, photos, visuals, animation and all other types of information can be delivered at once. It has more layout designing options. Hyperlink serves the function of news headline.
4. Knowledge links:
We can hyperlink the story to the backgrounders or the related news stories even in other sites. Archives also can be hyperlinked.
5. News vehicles:
It enables the dissemination of news in different formats. These range from plain text to audio bytes to visual clips. The news can be accesses on a desktop, download and read, heard or viewed.
Comparison of Cyber Media with Print
Online media heralds the convergence of what were seen as components of prints and broadcast media-text, graphics, audio and video. It is carried by a new technology that has linked virtually every corner of the world. The synergy helps it to surpass everything that the media world has seen so far.
While the print and broadcast media are constrained by space and time, the online media is in possession of seemingly endless space for publication. It has global reach and content is one line for hours a day and seven days a week.
Apart from convergence, a distinct feature of online media is hyper linking. Billions of pages of information, millions of pages of news report are now online that the reader can access with the click of a mouse.
Costs:
Online publishing costs are incomparably lower than printing costs (labor, machinery, paper, color, distribution, etc.) and, with newer technologies and faster processors flooding the markets, the online machine publishing (blogs, forums, etc.) costs will keep going down, while the “human” costs may remain the same or become lower than similar costs incurred by the print media. For example, a printing unit will need several technicians to produce a newspaper and organize it for distribution. Comparatively, an online publishing unit does not need even 1% of the workforce that a print unit requires.
Distribution:
Online distribution is literally free. Once a publisher has rented a server space, then all he needs is a programmer and designer to upload his content. There are no printing costs involved, no paper is used, no print run is needed, and no ink is required. But there are publicity costs involved – the online publisher has to promote his website to get people to read his content.
Online marketing is done by registering the site with various search engines and then by optimizing the site using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
Normally, a publisher should appoint a web development company to market and promote his site online and this entails a cost. Where newspapers are concerned, they too pay a certain commission to their distributors or they have to set up a separate distribution department.
Editing:
Editing is very easy when it comes to online publishing. Once a mistake is noticed, a correction can be easily made within minutes. The print media offers no such luxuries. Of course, online media is not error-free – publishers should take care to see that there are no broken links, badly programmed pages, etc. However, corrections can be made in online documents, but for a printed document once a document is printed then correcting it is impossible – you would need to reprint.
Time:
Print publishing is a time-consuming affair, whereas online publishing is fast, instant and depends on the publisher’s web development team. News can be uploaded in online media immediately as it breaks – there are no “publishing” delays.
Audience Preferences:
People are used to the printed word and it is going to take time for them to make online media a “habit”. But experts and futurists feel that this will surely happen and it’s just a matter of time before online media overtakes the print media. Ask yourself this question: What was the usage of landlines before mobile technology invaded the market? The answer is there right in your mind – the question is whether realization has struck you yet!
Profits:
As of now, print publishing makes a hell of a lot of money than online publishing. Again, this is because of people’s habits, and as we have discussed above, habits will change eventually. But, again, experts feel that all this will change – good sites with news are already attracting hordes of advertisements, specially targeting the yuppie and middle-age groups, and many niche content sites have a subscription model going for them. Given the rapidly expanding Internet audience, it is just a matter of time before massive profits start rolling in for the online publishers.
Dimensions of online journalism
The phenomenon of ‘Online Journalism’ can be defined as ‘the use of digital technologies to research, produce and delivering news and information to an increasingly computer literate audience (Barnhurst; cited in Deuze, 1999: 378).
The sunrise of new communication technology has brought the dazzling hope and challenges for both online news media and traditional media (Huesca & Dervin, 1991). The development of new media, especially in terms of the internet and the World Wide Web, Deuze (1999) goes on to add, has led to the creation of a new form of journalism which would later be recognized as ‘Online Journalism’. It is a kind of democratic version of journalism that has following four dimensions:
1. Interactivity
2. Immediacy
3. Hypertexuality and
4. Convergence
Interactivity:
Generally, interaction means mutual exchange, mutual influence, sharing etc. Mortensen (1972) terms interaction as a reciprocal influence. It is an alternating process of feedback (Morris, 2002). To Schramm interactivity is sharing of meaning of a signal between the sender and receiver of a message in order to reach mutual understanding. For media interaction occurs between the media/media people and its audience.
In online journalism, there are opportunities for the media to be engaged directly with its audience. Although interactivity has been assumed to be a natural characteristic of interpersonal communication, it has become very familiar and overused word in the daily language of online journalism. It is a key concept in new media discussion. It is the way to empower readers by giving the 'control over content'. Searchable databases are another form of interactivity ideally suited to Web stories. In this platform, communication has shifted from traditional 'transmission' model of communication to more balanced communication patterns of 'consultation' and 'conversation' (McQuail, 2000: 129-32). And we can mark it as the multiple-way of communication between reporter and users which means to have changed traditional relationship between the two parties.
Immediacy:
Immediacy is always an important concern in journalism. Internet technology has put online journalism to the challenge of updating the site providing fresh news or information frequently.
Immediacy has always been an elementary component of journalism. Radio and Television were traditionally the most immediate form of journalism. They could interrupt their programming with a bulletin. However, they are still constrained by deadlines and cannot explore the story in too much depth (Gunter, 2003: 48). Print journalism allows story depth but this medium has no immediacy. The new online news media is able to provide the best arena for distributing news quickly (DeWolk, 2001: 51). It has the immediacy of Radio and Television and the depth of print.
Convergence:
Multimodality or convergence is the combination of text, graphics, sound and videos. The images are translated and integrated into a common digital form (Dahlgren, 1996: 64). It gives the emphasis to a new media format that results from the convergence and integration of traditional print, audio and video formats. Online news media with the help of internet provides the journalists to present non-linear types of storytelling by using multimedia in innovative ways.
Hypertextuality:
Hypertextuality is a matter of interconnection between different sets of text in a more or less logical way. This means that there is a possibility to stratify information or to link to other sources.
In a deeper sense, the notion of hypertexuality on the level of first pages can be presented as a result of ‘content fragmentation’. The space reserved for short links or bullets that enable one to select different kinds of news and services is enlarged in online versions of news.
The reason of using hypertext in online news media is to satisfy the news consumer by deepening or broadening the news supply. Online news is different from the printed news. It is able to contain text, photo, audio or visual information and can make hyperlinks to other websites.
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