Encyclopedia of New Media

Online Journalism

Online journalism has combined the best, and in some cases the worst, aspects of all previous traditional news media. It offers a level of interactivity-direct communication between news organizations and audiences-never before known, made possible by online news forums. However, although it has brought text, audio, video, and graphics together in a single presentation, the practice of journalism on the Internet has not as yet broken any serious new journalistic ground.

The most common form of online journalism is the news Web site, such as CNN.com, Washingtonpost.com, and CNET.com. Some are partnered with or belong to traditional news outlets, and others stand alone on the Web. Email news services, which usually provide fragments of information and hyperlink pointers back to a Web site, are also important. Online bulletin board systems (BBSs), which are sometimes a haven for amateur journalists, and intranets, where financial news is often distributed to corporate employees and executives, are ...

—Kevin Featherly