As the Internet sweeps the world, many domestic news media have set up Web sites to provide online news. They have also tried to apply realtime interactivity to their news reports.
The first newspaper to publish exclusively on the Internet, T Times (
John Pavlik, a scholar at Columbia University, divides the development of Internet news into three stages. The first stage, consists of simply uploading to the Internet the news content of traditional media.
In the second stage, online news reporters start to develop news content taking into account the characteristics of the new media -- utilizing hyper-links, search engines and other interactive tools. Furthermore, they begin to "personalize" news content.
In the third stage, news Web sites would design their news content based on the features of the Internet; stories would be reported in new ways, developing the concept of "online communities."
This analysis, however, does not take into consideration one important factor in the process of news production and broadcasting -- the role of readers.
A very interesting aspect of the Internet phenomena still persists as usage rapidly expands: Internet users are neither the most powerful people or people who have the most resources. Students use it more than their teachers, and teachers do so more than their supervisors. Despite the fact that many surfers are the well-educated elite, they usually are not important policy-makers -- in other words they are not the type of people whom reporters usually interview.
In other words, the question facing the Internet news reports is no longer "how many people visit our Web sites?" or "How many people read our newspaper?" Rather, it is "Who reads online news?"
The reward for being a journalist is far more than the paycheck, and social status of a journalist usually does not match his influence. When journalists are doing their job, they not only use their reports as a bridge to interact with their interviewees, but also to develop a sense of power, growing out of awareness that their reports could influence social development and policy-making. All these are closely related to the readership of online news.
When journalists cannot help doubting whether their news is being read by their parents, interviewees and people in positions of power, how to make their reports meaningful poses a challenge. Unless online journalists realize that they write for readers rather than interviewees or specialists, they will inevitably feel lost.
Moreover, with their weaker influence, interviewees might discriminate against them in favor of traditional media reporters.
For online news media established by traditional media groups, the problem may not be as serious as for media which only publishes online news. On one hand, the reputation of traditional media would help their online news edition reach powerful readers. On the other hand, as long as the content of their online news also appears in the traditional news media, the anxiety about who the readers are can be easily resolved. For those journalists who work exclusively for online news, this anxiety over uncertain readership can be difficult to dispel.
With the trend towards the use of the Internet, online news media is thriving and the number of online journalists is increasing dramatically. Before the era of Internet media arrives, however, we should wait until the social environment matures. And one of the important catalysts for a matured social environment is encouraging our powerful decision-makers to browse the Internet themselves.
Lin Ho-lin is an associate professor of mass communication, National Taiwan University.
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) made a statement that provoked unprecedented repudiations among the European diplomats in Taipei. Chu said during a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting that what President William Lai (賴清德) has been doing to the opposition is equivalent to what Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany, referencing ongoing investigations into the KMT’s alleged forgery of signatures used in recall petitions against Democratic Progressive Party legislators. In response, the German Institute Taipei posted a statement to express its “deep disappointment and concern”
RSS