Complaints by media proprietors like Rupert Murdoch that Google News is “stealing” their content has always been countered by the argument that Google and other news aggregators actually direct web traffic back to orignating news sites. However, a survey of news consumers by Outsell Inc. found 44 per cent of Google News visitors scan headlines without ever clicking…
An ITZ/Belden Interactive study of reader sign-up rates at 26 U.S. dailies that put their online versions behind a paywall found the average number of online subscribers amounted to just 2.4 per cent of print subscribers, Alan Mutter reports on his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog.
Although the Internet has spawned a vast increase in news sources, almost all news is still gathered by traditional media, suggests a study by the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The study, which tracked how news was gathered and circulated through more than 53 news outlets during a week last year in Baltimore, discovered…
Say farewell to the TV generation. The Internet is our new addiction. In a recent survey by market researcher Synovate, 88 per cent of Canadian respondents said they could not live without Internet access or would miss it a lot, compared to just 70 per cent who felt the same about television. What would Neil Postman say?
A study of Twitter usage by the top 100 U.S. newspapers found that while all hosted feeds, almost 40 per cent didn’t link to those feeds from their websites. The Bivings Group study also reported many newspaper tweeters did not make effective use of the social media application’s reply capabilities to interact with readers.
Recent articles of interest published in scholarly journals: “Evaluating Journalism: Towards an assessment framework for the practice of journalism,” by Ivor Shapiro, Journalism Practice 4 (2), April 2010 “The Globe on Saturday, The World on Sunday: Toronto weekend editions and the influence of the American Sunday paper, 1886-1895“, by Sandra Gabriele and Paul Moore, Canadian…
With ad revenues slumping and web readership growing, news industry leaders are again mulling over making people pay to read online news. Two consulting companies recently released results of their own studies into consumer preparedness to pay for news and the results are … inconlusive. The Boston Consulting Group polled more than 5,000 people in nine countries and concluded many consumers would pay a…
News organizations that wait for online revenue to increase before reallocating major resources from traditional products to online products are making a huge and possibly terminal mistake, according to a research paper presented to a conference on the future of journalism hosted by the Yale Law School. News consumers are shifting their attention to online products much faster than ad spending, but the money will catch up,…
In a special issue, Journalism examines how transformations in the media business are impacting working conditions and labour practices in the journalism workplace. Articles include: “Compressed dimensions in digital media occupations: Journalists in transformation,” by Amy Schmitz Weiss and Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce “Token responses to gendered newsrooms: Factors in the career-related decisions of…
Although recent Pew surveys in the United States have documented a serious decline in the public’s perception of news media’s performance in areas like accuracy and neutrality, the role played by the press in monitoring and criticizing government and politicians continues to be regarded as a valuable and important public service.