Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Between the release of the world wide web (www) standard in 1991, the start of the first online news publications worldwide in the mid-1990s, the Kidon Media-Link international database of 18,318 online news media in 2006, and the emergence of hundreds of millions or more weblogs and podcasts, of which about one-tenth focus on news, one could say the web has become a widely accepted and used platform for the production and dissemination of news – by both professional reporters and amateurs (or → “ citizen journalists ”). Not only thousands of professional news media have started websites, millions of individual users and special interest groups have used the web as an outlet for their news as well. Correspondingly, trade and scholarly publications have focused extensively on journalism as it is produced online, resulting in a sprawling field of research dealing with one or more aspects of Internet news. A particular focus on news as it is gathered on, produced for, and distributed via the Internet seeks to disconnect it from the hardware of personal computers, technological appliances, and digital networks, thus enabling a more specific focus on online journalism as a distinct social practice. Journalism is and has always been dependent on technology. For the profession to achieve public status and reach a “mass” audience, it relies on technologies for the gathering, editing, ... log in or subscribe to read full text