Online: a 'new' journalism

The rapid technological advancements that are changing the world are having a huge impact on traditional journalism. Professional journalists are being forced to question were they exist in the world of the internet. If journalism does not move forward audiences are going to leave them behind because there needs are not being catered to. In many ways for journalism to survive the technological revolution forward thinking is needed. If they remain in the old ways they will perish. Journalism has always been a multi-skilled profession and for some reason the internet has journalists running scared rather than embracing change.

News, information and entertainment on the internet have revived media for generations who would not have had a bar of reading a newspaper from cover to cover. Our society does not live in those times anymore. For journalism to become more interactive on a medium like the internet has gotten peoples interest again. Media companies who use the technology available should be experimenting to see the different options and angles they could use to draw audiences in.
The internet has had the standard of news questioned and how the internet has seen newspapers online become more entertainment than news based.
Katz (1999 cited in Tapsall 2001, p. 236) has argued that media outlets, particularly newspapers have always been slow to change and do not welcome external challenges,

‘They’re heard it before. The newspaper industry has a deeply sado-masochistic streak. It goes to extraordinary lengths, and sometimes even great expense, to arrange for speakers to dump on newspapers and pronounce their downfall, even as they go to even greater lengths to take little or none of the advice they got.’

Television was once a threat to print media and editors believed that once broadcasts began that print would become obsolete. Now the internet has television, radio and print questioning how long will they last. Tapsall (2001, p. 237) asserts that ‘technological convergence has taken place, digital and Internet technologies do provide options to package text, sound and vision in one easy-to-access – from home or work – product.’
All new unknown technologies bring with them positives and negatives, television was seen as a negative influence when programs first began airing, now people wouldn’t know how to live without their plasmas. The internet has its positives and its negatives but really the problem is just the fear of the unknown.

Journalists are still making a living from writing articles for the online version of the publication they work for. In Australia online newspapers like The Age, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald are all functioning and are popular sites. Traditional media can survive alongside the internet. Just because a new medium comes along does not mean it is time to pack up the old. The internet has provided a different way of doing journalism. Only time will tell what the future of journalism will be.

Reference

Tapsall, S 2001, ‘The Media is the Message’, in S Tapsall & C Varley (eds), Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 235-253.