News And The Net

News and the Net 1 News and the Net 1 Barrie Gunter 2003 LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS Mahwah, New Jersey London This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright © 2003 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430 Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gunter, Barrie. News and the net / Barrie Gunter p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0–8058–4499–6 (alk. paper) ISBN 0–8058–4500–3 (pbk.paper) 1. Electronic newspapers. I. Title. PN4833 .G86 2003 070.1’72—dc21 2002031902 ISBN 1-4106-0739-9 Master e-book ISBN Contents Preface vii 1 The Expanding Online World 2 Electronic Delivery of News 18 3 Business Implications of Internet News 35 4 News Presentation on the Net 55 5 Implications for Journalism Practice 89 6 Online News and Legal Issues 119 7 Readers and Electronic Newspapers 143 8 The Future of News Online 165 References 178 Author Index 205 Subject Index 211 1 v Preface This book examines the growth of news provision on the Internet and its implications for news presentation, journalism practice, news consumers and the business of running news organizations. Much of the focus is placed on the migration of newspapers onto the Internet, but references are made to the establishment of news Web sites by other news organizations, including broadcasters and news agencies. The book begins examining the growth of online technology as a source of information and entertainment for media consumers. It considers how this development can be framed within models of communication, and comments on the apparent shortage of new models to explain the use, role, effectiveness, and impact of online communications. It then considers the early history of electronic news delivery, involving technologies that predate the Internet. These systems included online news provision in the form of news agency feeds designed specifically for professional news reporters, and then the emergence of corporate online information systems and news online for the general public in the form of text services provided via television broadcasting. With the establishment of Internet technology and, throug