Cyberspace Nations

Nations are “imagined communities” reinforced by the media, and online journalism has used the Internet to help maintain these communities by recreating nations on the Web, said a panelist during the fifth annual International Symposium on Online Journalism on Saturday. “Diasporic groups (people living in a foreign country) use the Internet and TV to maintain contact …  Read More

Multimedia Journalism Increases Global Understanding

Multimedia journalism not only creates global connections between users but also greater understanding of current events and how they are globally perceived, said panelists discussing the wired world’s impact on journalism. Jeremy Edwards, a University of Texas at Austin graduate student, said during the International Symposium on Online Journalism that surfing the Internet is like …  Read More

Participatory Journalism: The Essence of Wikipedia

Wiki wiki — Hawaiian for “quick” — is at the root of Wikipedia, a encyclopedia website where any page can be edited by users with the simple click of an “edit this page” button. Andrew Lih, assistant professor at Hong Kong University, compared the different levels of participation between web sites, web logs and “wikis” …  Read More

Defining Multimedia Journalism

“Multimedia” is a dynamic form of journalism that engages the audience and uses interactivity to help tell a story, a UT doctoral student presenter said Saturday during the fifth annual International Symposium on Online Journalism. Multimedia’s integration of more than one medium has allowed for an extension of reporting that has been great for young …  Read More

Is Blogging A New Form of Journalism?

The emerging practice of blogging raises new questions about the nature of journalism and the role of the journalist, researchers said in a panel discussion Saturday at the fifth annual International Symposium on Online Journalism. “A cross between a column, a news story and a journal, the journalist’s weblog (or J- blog) has started to …  Read More

Effectiveness of Online News Hampered By Repetition

Online newspaper headlines are doing a poor job of presenting information to readers, said the editor of the online edition of the leading Colombian newspaper. “If you have the attention of the reader, you need to present new information,” said Guillermo Franco, editor of ElTiempo.com, based in Bogota, Colombia. “There is a lot of information …  Read More

Research and Innovation Key to Future of Online Journalism

Research in online journalism seems to provide just as many questions as it does answers, said participants in a panel on online journalism research. In the studies presented for the panel, journalists and academics looked at ways for online journalism to improve in terms of content, design and resources. “We have to experiment,” said Guillermo …  Read More

Eyetrack III Shows How People Look at News Web Sites

A new stage of a study that tracks the eyes of people using news Web sites will provide important insight into the patterns of online viewership, a senior editor at the Poynter Institute said Saturday. “With the Eyetrack III we can track the online news consumer’s behavior in the age of multimedia,” said Steve Outing, …  Read More

Digital Media is Becoming Indispensable

While online news media may not yet be completely indispensable to all, their impact thus far is hard to ignore, said speakers on a panel debating the indispensability of online media during the 5th International Symposium on Online Journalism on Friday. “It may not be indispensable at the end of the day, but it darn …  Read More

Journalists and Scholars Gather in Austin to Discuss Online Journalism

A worldwide gathering of distinguished online journalists and multimedia scholars will debate emerging trends in the electronic media industry at the fifth International Symposium on Online Journalism April 16 and 17 at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism. The event, organized and sponsored by the Knight Chair in Journalism, will be webcast …  Read More