‘Speaking of meta'Questioning the internet as homogeneous

and global news medium

M. Opgenhaffen

Lessius University College

Symposium Myth of Global Internet - Free University of Brussels, 2007

Convergence

Convergence in modern journalism:

"has erased the boundaries between print, television, radioand online technologies“ (Boczkowski & Ferris, 2005)

"Unification of functions" (Yoffie, 1999)

"a growing similarity in news presentation through variousmedia" (Seib, 2001)

"the internet will be all“ (Owen, 1999)

General belief

• On the internet– Everything is ‘the internet’– Everything is accessible

The internet is considered and studied as one,big, homogeneous and global news medium

? ? ? Myth or reality ? ? ?

1. Everything is the internet?

• No distinct media online?– Digital news papers, blogs, e-mail, discussion

fora, web tv, web radio, podcasts, rss-feeds, …

– Each medium has its own ‘media logic’, own‘medium specificity’

• Better:– ‘medium of media’ (Levinson, 1999)– ‘Multimedium’ (Jankowski & Hanssen, 1996)– ‘metamedium’ (Adams & Clarck, 2001)

Content analysis

• Online coverage of elections in 2006 + 2007(Belgium)

• measuring distinct sub-media and characteristics

Internet as meta-medium

Convergent medium Convergent medium Convergent medium(e.g. digital news paper) (e.g. portal site) (e.g. news site)

Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium

(e.g. news blog, paper in pdf, discussion forum, web tv, web radio, rss-feed, mail-alert)

2. Everything is accessible?

• Global infrastructure• Everybody is a journalist (cfr. citizen journalism)

(Non-)official news from all around the world isaccessible through the internet

- Do news consumers access this information?- Do they know how to access and process?

Access or use?

• 4 types of access (Van Dijk, 1999; 2003)

Mental access (e.g. lack of motivation)

Material access (e.g. lack of internet)

Skills access (e.g. lack of informationretrieval skills)

Usage access(e.g. news vs. entertainment)

Digital divide in use

• Shift from– digital divide in access

– digital divide in use of online (news) media

• Access to global news ≠ use of global news

Online survey

• 789 college students (18-24) (64% response rate)• June – September 2007

• 100% access to internet• 0% never / 0.3% < 1 year / 81.6% > 5 jaar

• Based on content analysis: use of online newsmedia (+ online applications)

Use of (foreign) news media

1.96

1.75

0.35

0.25

0.23

0.17

1.01

Mean(0-5)

1.54 [12,93%]1.37 [2.91%]0.86 [2.53%]0.93 [2.28%]0.71 [1.14%]

0.41 [0.25%]

1.26 [5.44%]

22.5%

21.6%

84.6%

96%

87.6%

95,3%

54,3%

18%

11.5%

1.3%

3.7%

0.9%

0.3%

3.6%

Digital newspaper [foreign newspaper]TV/Radio-site [foreign tv/radio-site]News blog [foreign news blog]Rss-feeds [foreign rss-feeds]News forum [foreign fora]Usenet [foreign usenet]News mail [foreign news mails]

Std.dev.Never /unknown

≥ 1time/day

Conclusions

• Internet ≠ homogeneous medium meta-medium with (convergent and distinct)

sub-media

• Access to global news ≠ use of global news Variance in online media use Very low usage of foreign news media