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.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
RSS