|[pic] |
|Final Report |
|New Media – 6MZ007 – Assessment 2 |
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|Julien LICATA |
|9th December 2011 |

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

ANALYSIS 5
1. Digitality 5
2. Interactivity 5
3. Hypertextuality 6
4. Virtuality 6
5. Hypermediacy 7
6. Immediacy 7
7. Automation 8

DISCUSSION 9
1. Fragmentation 9
2. Information and communication freedom 10

REFERENCES 11

INTRODUCTION

In twenty years, Internet has modified the everyday life of more than 2 billion persons. (InternetWorldStats, 2011) The World Wide Web has become a work tool for some of us and an entertainment for others. At the middle of the 1990’s, the press groups made a start on this new network which is resourceful in a lot of fields: quick information spreading, instant access to many news website, link to related topics and articles, wide sort of aids to illustrate the news, possibility to find an article easily thanks to search engine. Internet gives deep information that neither old support could give until now.

Today, Internet press websites have become real economic issues for the media. All the press groups are conscious that they have to invest in the online version of their newspapers. It is a survival opportunity but they did not know yet the better way to use these new technologies and make the most of the many possible innovations. The online news consumption already exceeds the writing press ones.

The Times had to create an online version to make its 250 year’s old printed version younger. Online journalism has to include the characteristics of Web 2.0 to become an efficient information support. The Times website is a commercial community. Place and platform are hybrid; people can read the news everywhere in the world on a paper (analogue media) and also on a computer or mobiles applications (digital media). The interactions between the persons are stronger; there are a user-user interaction and a journalist-users interaction. This model generates money through a subscription and some advertisements on the website. (JCMC, 2004).

The steps between the article writing to its broadcasting are reduced to the minimum. We can notice a significant economy of the printing costs, paper costs and wages; to resume, the industrial phase disappears. Consequently, deadlines are less and strike risks become almost non-existent.

Periodicity is abolished, time is relentless. Information broadcasting is reduced. News is broadcasting instantly and its release allows the user to react quickly. The scoop run is accelerated thanks to 2.0 technologies.

The main internet profit is to offer interactivity between the journalist and the reader which becomes a web-actor. He can break the news and his feeling of belonging to a community is stronger. Each internet user become web-actor, internet user and contents originator, we assist to information democratization.

Mass media period is over; we are in a period where the offer is more and more targeted. It is now possible to reach a spread audience from all parts of the world thanks to thematic resources, specialized or not, and newspaper stored data. The user can read the topics he wants to.
The news website framework typifies by the screen division grouping sections together for all the users and allowing everyone to took advantage of the alternative. It is possible for a journalist to mix texts, links, pictures and videos for a set richer and more diversified.

In this report, I will take a closer look on The Times website. First of all, I will examine the new media key characteristics and then I will discuss about the fragmentation of information caused by internet and also the freedom given to the communication trough the world network.

ANALYSIS

Digitality

A form of digitality is actually present on the Times website. The analog media become a digital media thanks to a process in which the media is made into computer-readable form. (J.V. Pavlik, 2004) There are benefits in this digitization: data can be compressed into very small place then data can be accessed at very high speeds and finally they can be manipulated more easily than analogue form.

We can notice that there is a real will to show a link between the electronic version and the paper version. There is a perfect horizontal consistency between the different aids. It’s a way to be faithful to the newspaper without confuse the audience. The computer is used as a great communication device that allows all kind of information in all formats to be carried in an article.

News website had in the past the exclusivity on the online actuality. TV and pure-players website (news website which exclusively display on internet) have doubled them. Instead of just offering text, newspapers have begun providing audio and video contents. Multimedia contents in Times articles, as Youtube videos or graphics, illustrate efficiency the given information.

For the readers, the wide range of multimedia contents is both a source of wealth and potential reading difficulties. It illustrates perfectly articles and immerses the user in the action but it fragmentizes the lecture.

Interactivity

Web 2.0 gives a voice to the user and it is something usual in media websites. It is produced via comments under articles, notifications and recommendations systems, specific modules (poll, game, blog).
Interactivity means participation, and it’s something new on a website toward a newspaper. Before online articles, a part of a page was reserved to the reader where they could publish something on the news events, books, films… Now there is a real Human-computer interaction: comments, possibility of sharing news or recommending the article create a dialogue with the journalist and other users. The internet gives a much wider range of possibilities for debating on public issues. Press has to have been adapted and now users are more and more implicated. Times website allow a simplified and active dialog with the internet user.It’s a form of participatory journalism: Users are allowed to give their own opinion post publication that will not change the editorial line, it’s a registrational interactivity.

Users do not share a common space, Times website has created dialogical spaces, where participants can discuss on an issue through comments under articles.

Internet has evolved into a new interactive medium. The convergences of many of the characteristics of traditional media combine into something new, a unique medium for communication. (R. Burnett & P. D. Marshall, 2003)

Hypertextuality

The hypertext links give different information levels and different angle in the same article. They replace the traditionally journalistically rule of the 5W which lead the reader to answer the 5 basis questions: “Who? What? When? Where? Why?”

The question of interactivity is complex. It is not only technical implementation of interactive mechanisms but it also shows the preferences of the editorial policy when they use a website or another one.
For some online Times articles, there is a possibility to move through a link to other types of mass media news as broadcast media (radio or television content) and public institutions websites. The Times journalists have not included this characteristic in all their articles. I think all the internet sources have not the same quality so they want the reader to stay focus on the principal information. Furthermore, an external hypertextuality can cause a low of attention.

The redaction wants to create a sort of interconnection on a different place between different texts, including related topics and articles from The Times without creating a fragmentation. It is an internal hypertextuality, users can navigate through a click on other related articles and topics. Each user can adopt a specific way to adapt his lecture to the researched level. (H.E. Stenfert Kroese, 2005)

Virtuality

Virtuality, also named virtual reality, is an artificial environment, created with software, which immersed the user in it. The environment makes the user believing his acts thanks to two essential senses: sight and sound. (M. Lister, 2009)

Some visible example of virtuality today are 3D videogames, 3D movies with spectacular images full of technologies. Through most of these games, the user can identify himself to an avatar which can modify as he wants (gender, appearance, personality...). He seems to be immersed in a special environment which can reflect the reality. Participants have often an interaction together.

We can’t talk about virtuality for the Times website. Even if a user is allowed to comment an article, he is not represented as a digital avatar to get in a virtually scenario. He just has a user name. News is reality, and user is not immersed in a 3D virtual world as we can see in videogames.

Hypermediacy

Hypermediacy is a type of visual representation which remembers the user who is watching it the medium presence. A website which uses graphics, hypertext links, photos or videos to communicate a simple message, is a hypermediated website.
By the use of multimedia contents, the user is near the action when he hears the journalist speaking in front the camera or when he watches the images of a fact. It creates a feeling of presence and his attention is drawn to the possibilities instead of the basic message.

An example drawn from The Times website can be the wide range of windows on the same screen and consequently on the same page. It is not unusual for current internet users, to have about ten opened windows at one time. We can notice that the online version is an emulation of the analogue version and vice versa, the two are really similar.

The concept of hypermediacy is strongly present in online journalism but leads to information and content fragmentation. The medium seems to be most of the time segmented, divided in a plenty of smallest one. (W. Michell, 1992)

Immediacy

Immediacy is related to the immersive navigation and it allows the user to navigate in the medium, to discover its content and to be totally immersed. If the user feels the medium disappearing progressively in his eyes, it means that immediacy works. This feature appears in simulated 3D world such as in video games.

The Times is really different as a 3D video game but it includes some characteristic of immediacy. On the one hand, the hypertexts links help the user in his navigation but, on the other hand, they fully immerse him into the website. Each article allows him to read another one.

The possibility of taking part in the article by writing a comment post-publication create a debate with the other readers. The user seems to be integrated in the story trough this opportunity.

The emergence of media 2.0 and new broadcasting supports for reading news such as Smartphone’s applications have increased the access to The Times. A person which owns a cellular with an internet connection can instantly access to the online version of the newspaper and, once more, to be totally immersed in this world navigating from page to page thanks to his thumb. The digital interface is erased, time and distance between the user and actions are shortened and create an illusion of reality.

The democratisation of this way of reading news has changed the behaviour of news consumption. Mass media period is over, we currently talk about a “my media” period to describe this new behaviour.

Automation

The concept of automation comes from the industrial revolution thanks to the mechanization. Before that, the factories worked thanks to hand machinery. Then, the mechanical assembly line had been automatized thanks to computing. Computers are composed by data and software which extend the user mind. The metaphor used by McLuhan has sense here; like the hammer is an extension of the hand, computers are an extension of minds.

Internet has been introduced later, at the beginning for a military target and finally it has become a useful service which can repeat human actions, functions and tasks.

Books, magazines, catalogues and newspaper are not showing any automation. In the process of digitization, when analogue media data are converted into a digital form there is an automation process.

There are some examples of automation in the Times website. When the reader wants to join, he gives some data, and particularly his electronic address. An automatic mail will be send to him to confirm his subscription; this is automation.

DISCUSSION

Fragmentation

Consumers have more and more range of contents available thanks to the continuous development of the information supports. Digital media increase the fragmentation of contents but the audience attention is also dispersed. The online audience is growing faster than print audience is declining. Paidcontent.org (2007). The media fragmentation information can be broken down into different components.

Actually the mass media period is over and we are in a period of my media. New delivery platforms multiply the way to access and read news. Most of the newspaper agency, The Times included, have a paper version of the newspaper and also a website but now there is a wide broadcasting supports diversification : the arrival of social networks, the new functionalities on cell phones, blogging and micro-blogging success, development of radio and TV streaming or eBooks.

Most of newspaper websites are looking for retranspose paper medium to digital aids. They forget to tear the content off to find new ways of innovation. The arrival of touchpads and the development of mobile phones have had a positive effect on the aid design: they require considering the medium in its most cut-through form: content as a software. Until now websites, using an analogue media metaphor looked for a website following the newspaper logic. No interaction pleasure was created. Read news online became as boring as read them on a paper, the customer found any additional information. Dribs and drabs, designers included digital contents in their articles (see PART 1, digitality).

On a website, there are more content, not less as you can think; more information, more analysis, more precision. It is more complicated to navigate on a digital media than it is to read your traditional morning paper. Readers can visit quickly different website, read a political article and after gossip news. They can also compare the same news on competitor websites and read the information in different ways. That’s why The Times has not included hypertext links inside the article. They try to influence the reader progression and keep him on the page and more particularly on the website.

Through a mouse touch, everybody is now able to share an article on social networks or to send it quickly by email to a friend. And this process can be repeated hundred times. Circles of news are created; a political point of view of a journalist in his article will be reflected on a person and his circle. A social fragmentation is created.

Information and communication freedom

Communication freedom is the right to have access to information but also to say something freely, without censorship. In each country, the right of free speech is established by the Constitution of this one.

Because of its complexity, Internet shows news challenges in free speech. It combines a lot of forms of media, it is easy to access and it does not have a central point of control. This complexity is described as a medley of technologies by Donald F. Theall in 1997. It means that internet groups different multimedia contents together. The internet user has to keep in mind some recommendations when he publishes something. Because freedom expression does not mean the freedom to say whatever you want, whenever you want is but publishing an abusive content is something else. Discriminative, violent contents are forbidden for example. It is difficult for the companies to control all the users’ publications.

The old media, as newspapers, gave the right to the reader of being informed freely. Now, digital media thanks to Internet provides an opportunity of wider freedom communication for online journalism.

The interactive participation of the users by commenting articles and sharing information on particular through a wide variety of supports such as social media is the main example visible on The Times website. However, The Times does not act in the way of information and communication freedom because an account, not free, is required to access online news. After that, navigation is totally free and access to the information is really easy.

Though all previous concepts, we can see that each Times’ articles gives the reader the opportunity to access freely to the news. Navigate on related topics, comment articles, share the information with your friend circle or publish it on your own social profile shows the freedom of the website.

Internet has broken political and geographical borders. A person can access to The Times website even if she is on the other side of the planet. In integrating new media characteristics, journalists increase the rate of freedom. User is integrated in the action and he is free to publish something in respect of the law.

REFERENCES

W. Mitchell (1992) The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Postphotographic Era, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

R. Burnett & P. D. Marshall (2003) Web theory: an introduction, London and New York, Routledge, p.57.

J.V. Pavlik (2004) A Sea Change In Journalism Convergence, Journalism, Their Audiences And Sources, Convergence.

JCMC (2004) A Typology of Virtual Communities: A Multi-Disciplinary Foundation for Future Research, University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Updated November 2004. [accessed 5 December 2011]

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/porter.html

H.E. Stenfert Kroese (2005) Gazette, International journal for mass communications studies, LONDON, Sage Publications, p.97.

Paidcontent.org (2007) Online Newspaper Audience Rising Twice As Fast As General Internet Population: Report, David Kaplan. Updated 24 July 2007. [accessed 2 December 2011]

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-online-newspaper-audience-rising-twice-as-fast-as-general-internet-popu

M. Lister (2009) New media: a critical introduction, London and New York, Routledge, p.44.

R.K. LOGAN (2010) Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall Mcluhan, Peter Lang Publications, p.206.

RMIT University (2011) Media fragmentation, party system and democracy, Melbourne, Paolo Mancini. Updated 31 August 2011. [accessed 2 December 2011] http://mams.rmit.edu.au/jmd30yp9h2jo.pdf InternetWorldStats (2011) INTERNET USAGE STATISTIC - The Internet Big Picture : World Internet Users and Population Stats. Updated 6 October 2011. [accessed 5 December 2011]
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm