| Newspapers now have a new medium---the Internet---to relay the news. Reporters have begun calling themselves "multimedia producers," and are expected to brandish a video camera or audio recorder as adeptly as they wield pen and paper. Readers may manipulate what shows up on the news Web site. The result has been a medley of video, audio, interactive games, discussion forums and message boards, in-depth archives, searchable databases and three-dimensional graphics alongside the text. Do such changes in form reflect a comprehensive transformation of the roles for the news story, the journalist, and the audience member? In this dissertation, I explore online technology's impact on the fundamental nature of journalism by understanding the story's basic narrative, its controllers, and its readers in this new environment. Normative press theory and a medium perspective informed the analysis. In-depth interviews with the news producers and narrative analyses of their product showed that the news narrative online resembles a chronicle of personal experience focusing on journalism. Cyberspace offers a place for a second-order newsroom, within which an interpretive community of both journalists and audience members negotiates the news. Though the institution of the press remains intact, authority over the production of news is now shared among journalists, sources, and readers. |
