Online journalism

Why?
 Online journalism is the future
 Newspaper/TV advertising revenues are down.
 A few newspapers in the world has already closed
down its print edition while continuing the online
edition.
 A media to stay!
 But, traditional media will not die!
 The history of media shows arrival of new media
changes/ constrains the role of existing media

What?
 Define online journalism
 Strengths of online journalism
 Weaknesses of online journalism
 Citizen Journalism
 History of Online Journalism

Who?
 Cricket Nepal (www.cricket.com.np)
 United We Blog! (www.blog.com.np)
 Radio Free Nepal (freenepal.blogspot.com)
 Nepali Voices (www.nepalivoices.com)
 Republica (www.myrepublica.com)

 Tarun Weekly
 Nepal Samacharpatra
 The Kathmandu Post

Online Journalism
 The journalistic activities primarily
conducted for disseminating information
through internet

 Online Journalism is JOURNALISM.
Online simply defines the method of
delivery to the audience.

Online Journalism
 The Internet: The greatest advance for
communication since the printing press

 An important information source — as
important as other traditional media

Online Journalism Website

 Examples
 MYREPUBLICA.COM
 EKANTIPUR.COM
 NEPALNEWS.COM

What is NOT Online Journalism?

 Examples
 MYSANSAR.COM
 NAYAPATRIKA.COM
 NEPALUPCLOSE.COM

Strengths of Online Journalism
 Unlimited space
 Unlike traditional media, online media do not have
space/time restraint

 Global Distribution
 Global reach is basic feature of online media

 Convergence
 Multimedia –convergence of text, graphics, audio and video

 Hypertext
 Text that links to other content

 Interactive
 Increased ability of the public to actively participate in the
discussion and/or construction/control of content
 Internet provides a greater level of audience participation:
 PRODUCTION: Citizen journalism & UGC (user-generated content)
 CONSUMPTION: Discussion/comments/feedback

 Storage & retrieval
 Content are storable permanently which is easy to search

 And, most importantly, immediacy
 Publishing is quick and easy

Strengths of Digital Media
 Global reach
 Easy publication
 Interactivity
 Multimedia possibility
 Permanancy
 Timelessness
 Unlimited space

Types of Online Journalism Sites
 Sites associated with already existing media organizations
 Myrepublica.com, ekantipur.com, newsofnepal.com,
thehimalayantimes.com

 Sites associated with local TV and radio stations
 Avenues.tv

 Sites that exist only on the Internet
 Nepalnews.com

Weaknesses
 Mushroom
 News sites, journalists and news/opinion
 Lack of Credibility
 It’s not easy to distinguish between good and bad
news site
 Ethical Questions
 Privacy, accuracy vs speed, copyright and advertising
 Digital Divide
 The gap between haves and have-nots

Weaknesses of Digital Media
 Information overload
 Accuracy
 Credibility
 Opinion-based
 Individual
 Manipulative

Talking Positive
 Interactivity: Increased ability of the public to actively
search for their own information and to interact online
 Increased public access to different forms and types of
media; access to a greater diversity of content
 Reduced ‘gatekeeping’ powers of major news
organizations; less power to set the news agenda or
manipulate the public’s understanding of events
 New and powerful story-telling methods through
multimedia technology
 Convergence means more resources to probe issues

Talking Negative
 Rise in journalism of assertion
 unsubstantiated opinion and rumor which harms
journalistic credibility; lack of restraint among online
writers
 Pressure to lower ethical standards and sensationalize
stories
 Problems of personal privacy
 Who is a journalist?
 Questions on ethical values regarding news values,
newsworthiness and credibility.

Citizen Journalism
 The concept of members of the public playing an active
role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and
disseminating news and information.

 Also known as “public”, “participatory”, “democratic” or
“street” journalism

Purpose of Citizen Journalism
 People without professional journalism training can
use the tools of modern technology and the global
distribution of the internet to create, augment or
fact-check media on their own or in collaboration of
others.

 To provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-
range and relevant information that a democracy
requires.

Advantages of Citizen Journalism
 Relevant
 Interactive
 Genuine
 Connected
 Targeted
 Complementary

Dangers of Citizen Journalism
 Significant number of unqualified people are doing
journalism without permission from anyone.

 No authorities to enforce rules and codes.

 Susceptible to information overload.

1960s
 Ted Nelson, Harvard sociology
student, conceptualize hypertext
 Gives a lecture which is covered in
the student newspaper. The first
print reference of “hypertext”
appears, Feb. 3, 1965
 ARPANET computer network, the
forerunner of today’s Internet,
created by the US Defense
Department in 1969

1970s
 The BBC files for a patent
on Teledata, the first
teletext system in 1971
 A loop of “pages”
broadcast on TV
 Not interactive
 Service is limited to a few
hundred available pages
 Slow

1970s
 British Post Office’s Research
Laboratory demonstrates Viewdata
(later Prestel) the first Videotext
service in 1974
 It’s interactive, supporting two-way
communication
 You use your TV, hooked up to cable
and a phone line
 You make entries using a keyboard,
dedicated terminal or computer
 Menu-driven systems to browse
 Photo display

In 1974
Teletext Videotext Computers

• Not interactive • Interactive • Interactive
• Slow • Need cable • Very
TV and an expensive
• Need is a TV &
a decoder box expensive • Poorly
subscription networked
• Almost no
one has one

1981-82
Early computer-based
online dial-up services
emerge
 Compuserve
 The Source
 Prodigy

These are closed
systems - only
subscribers have
access

1980s
 1983: Time Magazine names the computer “Machine
of the Year”
 1984: Apple introduces the Macintosh computer.
Cost: $2,495 US with built-in B&W monitor.
 Within 75 days, 50,000 are sold
 1985: 22 nations involved in videotext and teletext
 1986: Computers readily available in US universities
 Computers becoming cheaper and more powerful;
first personal printers appear; ($7,000 US for an
Apple LaserWriter)
 1988: Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is developed by
Finnish graduate student Jarkko Oikarinen
 DARPA makes the Internet public

1990s
 Hypertext Markup
Language is invented by Tim
Berners-Lee in 1990
 1992 July: Lynx, a non-
graphical Web and Gopher
(FTP) is released
 1992 November: 26
“reasonably reliable”
servers

1993
 August: Mosaic, first graphical
Web browser for Windows, is
released
 Sept. 25: CompuServe,
Prodigy and AOL have a
combined 3.9m subscribers
 October: First journalism site is
launched at the University of
Florida. 200 web servers in the
world
 Dec. 8: First article about the
web appears in the New York
Times

1994
 Jan. 19: The first newspaper to
regularly publish on the Web,
the Palo Alto Weekly in
California, begins twice-weekly
postings of its full content

 April: The Yahoo “Internet
index” is started by Stanford
PhD candidates David Filo and
Jerry Yang

Internet in Nepal
 June 1994: Mercantile Office Systems began the
commercial email system
 July 1995: Mercantile started providing full online access
operating via a lease line through Nepal Telecom with it’s
backbone in Singapore.
 By the end of 1995, Mercantile had 150 subscribers
 January 1996: WorldLink began internet services as
around same time with duplex dial-up lines that dials in
USA four times a day.

News Online
 October 1993: Nepalese in US began the publication
of first online media– The Nepal Digest. (449 issues)
 September 1995: The Kathmandu Post went online
on the University of Illinois website. It was joint effort
of Mercantile Communications, the publication and
Rajendra Shrestha, an engineering student in US.
 1997: Himal Media started archiving it’s publication,
Himal South Asia, in it’s own website
himalsouthasia.com.

Online Journalism begins
 1998: Mercantile established South-Asia.com which
archived seven daily and weekly newspapers.
 1999: Mercantile moved to NepalNews.com with
news from its own sources.
 April 2000: Kantipur Publications established
KantipurOnline.com
 December 2002: Kamana Group of Publications
began newsofnepal.com.

Citizen Journalists in Scene
 October 2004: First blog of Nepal– United We
Blog! – established by Dinesh Wagle and
Ujjwal Acharya

 February 2005: Blogs (UWB! and Radio Free
Nepal) became major source of information
during media censorship

Nepal is closed friends
 On February 7, 2005 @ 4:26 pm

Dear friends world over, Nepal is closed for
the time being. So we won’t be able to
put our views here. But you are free to
put your views. Please continue to use
this blogging site

Radio Free Nepal
 February 8, 2005
 King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on
independent news broadcasts and has threatened to
punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the
official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal
publishing reports critical of "the spirit of the royal
proclamation" is subject to punishment and/or
imprisonment, contributors to this blog will publish their
reports from Nepal anonymously.

info@nepalivoices.com
www.twitter.com/ujjwalacharya
www.facebook.com/ujjwal.acharya

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